[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

Deep beneath the protective embrace of Mt Kaimon, the Yamamoto clan built their homes, the hidden guardians of Kumogakure living beneath the outskirts of the hidden village, connected through passages that few but they themselves could traverse safely. The reason for this was rather simple, for the Yamamoto needed not eyes to see, nor light to navigate, and so they could walk unerringly through the pitch black pathways of their home, the many traps that would confound any enemy as blatant to them as though they screamed to be seen.

At least, for most Yamamoto. 

Children, the newly adopted, these were the most common members of the clan who were yet unable to walk the hidden paths. Well, them and Shosuke.

For reasons known only to his immediate family, the young man had not been granted the skill of Yama no Tamashii, and with no connection to the soul of the mountain he was as blind as an outsider amongst the many passages of their mountain home. Thus, today, he would drink deep of the mountain's bounty and truly join with it, beginning his path to fully embracing the Yamamoto ways.

He would find himself led through the pitch black roads, emerging into a large, well lit chamber carved and heavy with the weight of generations. Up some stairs he would be led into a round room where a large altar sat, surprisingly surrounded by small and sturdy trees, the branches almost reaching out to caress him.



Those who had been chosen to escort him stopped at the entry to the room, staring at the single figure within. As part of the agreement between to factions of potential clan heirs, Eri had sworn to teach her clansman how to utilise the Yama no Tamashii, but she was going to be scrutinised while she did so. She had been chosen not only because their respective 'supporters' for the position wanted some sort of truce for the moment, but because she was one of the more skilled practitioners of the ability, her skill in utilising it difficult to match.

She had never guided someone through the ritual before, and so despite the calm she portrayed to those watching, she stared at the concotion before her in trepidtation, waiting for the boy to approach and be ready to begin.

Word Count: 386
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

It was true, the Yamamoto made their homes under the mountain, or at least one of the many mountains of the Land of Lightning. Many of them chose to never see the sky, to live in the perpetual darkness of their home and care for their young. It was a strange way of life, but it was the way they had chosen. Or many of them had, at least.

For that was the other thing about the Yamamoto, they were a strange and eclectic bunch who came from all walks of life and who had come from not only all over the village but all over the Land of Lightning itself. As such. it should be no surprise that there were some who chose to live their own unique lives.

Sho just so happened to be one of those cases.

When he was young, he had shown great potential, even managing to unleash Wood Release, something people thought impossible outside of the Senju line (save for those unfortunate laboratory experiments, of course). As it was well known that trees, like plants, required sunlight to survive and thrive, his mother had chosen to make sure they both lived topside, unable or at least unwilling to let her son's talents flounder in an inhospitable environment.

At least, that was what she had said about it at the time. Whether that was the case, or she just really didn't like the idea of being essentially buried alive in a claustrophobic tomb of a mountain home was unclear. She had been a first-generation member of the clan, after all.

Some people just don't like tight spaces.

Either way, the truth remained that Sho had been raised without the ability of the clan, as he had spent his years perfecting and training his skill as a doctor. His undeniable medical skill and his mastery of a rare type of release had both thrust him into the spotlight, and even made him a potential future head of the clan, but now his lack of talent with the family's unique skill was actually coming back to bite him, damaging his chances to "win".

Fortunately, it seemed that another camp was willing to help him up rather than exploit his Achilles' heel to keep him below them.

---

Walking forwards pass the brackish trees, Sho slowly walked up the steps, each one taken deliberately and with purpose. Part of that was his unfamiliarity with the space, but the other part was that he knew people were watching from both camps. If he showed any further signs of weakness, they would be remembered and they would be acknowledged, furthering their discontent even further.

Still, eventually he found himself standing in front of his rival for the Head position, looking her in the eyes from where he stood in the doorway. His hair, medium length and brown, shone in the flickering torchlight, contrasting violently with her own fiery auburn locks, a reminder that whilst they may call themselves family that biologically they were anything but. They were more of a clan, a tribe, than they were actual kin. But such was their ways.

Moving forwards, Sho bowed to her for just a moment, before matching her gaze eye-to-eye without hesitation.

"Lady Eri - It's a pleasure to have an audience with you. It's a shame it has to be under such serious circumstances, I thought you might like to get some food, but my aides tell me it'd be offensive to ask. Even being my Danchou as you are."

Unintentionally, unwittingly, Sho made his first mistake. A slip of the tongue. He was unfamiliar with his new team and had heard through the grapevine that they had called her Danchou, something he had tried to emulate. In reality, they called her Dancho, or "ringleader". What he had unintentionally called her, without knowing, was his beloved, his heartbreak, his amour.

There could be no doubt about it... this would be gossip before the week was out.

663 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-Rank EXP: 1/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

Eri wasn't quite sure how to respond to the young man, large orange eyes staring up at him in the dim light of the ritual room, a little non-plussed as he spoke about getting food. "You will not be able to keep anything down for some time, food would be pointless," she stated simply, confused as to what he had intended to express, especially as it seemed that the other members of their clan around them reacted somewhat oddly to his declaration.

"You have been cut off from the mountain for too long, it will not be easy for you to connect to it now, as old as you are," she declared as she led him deeper into the room, coming to stand by the altar where a bowl shaped hollow could be seen, dark fluid sitting with deceptive calm as it waited for them, "normally this is done when you are beginning to walk, it causes less issues that way." That his mother had kept him away from the depths of the clan's home was understandable, if misguided. Shosuke could not feel the music of the earth, the work of his kin, to him their home was mostly dark and lonely, but to her and the others it sung with its very own voice, providing them with safety and connection to something larger than themselves.

Picking up a stone cup as a signal to start the rite, Eri watched as the room began to fill with the smoke from suddenly opened incense braziers, a deep woody scent that helped bring the feeling of the mountain to those who could smell it. Dipping the cup into the hollow of the altar, she withdrew it, now filled with the thick dark fluid that clung to her hand and the outer wall of the vessel.

"A new child of the mountain comes before us, accepted as kith and kin. The mountain's blood does not run through their veins, its soul cannot reach them. Today, it will welcome the child into its protection, and through it, we shall come to know them as our kin. The child will drink deep of the mountain's heart, and join with it to never be separated again." Her voice was measured, calm, even as she stepped forward to hand the stone cup to Shosuke, looking ta him expectantly to drink it.

Should he accept the risks, he would find it to be thick, clinging to his tongue and infusing his body with a deep chill. As it filled his belly, he would realised that it in fact burned, his inner flesh heating up immensely even as his skin began to fall cold. Eri herself retrieved the cup from him, placing it back on the altar and watching him carefully.

"Today you join the very soul of our mountain. To tell any of what you experience here is to be marked for death," she explained, waiting as the fluid began to do its work, watching to see what awful experiences he might be expected to experience.

---

Word Count: 508
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

Keep nothing down... Yeah, he expected about as much. It was why he had prepared for this in advance.

Sho had dealt with people who had damage to their cochlea before, who's ears had stopped giving them the sense of equilibrium needed for them to be able to walk, to whom every moment stood on their feet was a moment of dizzying, nauseating pain. He had figured something like that might be in store, so he had stocked up on liquid foods, knowing full well that he would need to keep his strength up or face muscle degeneration, something they simply couldn't have in their career.

Their bodies were machines of war, built and maintained in the service of the village. To allow them to weaken, even for a short while, meant both ridicule and scorn. He had faced enough of that for walking away from the ninja life once, he wasn't going to allow it twice.

Even still, he followed her further into the room, coming into lockstep behind her. He didn't know how this worked, had been told by his fellow clan members that he wouldn't be allowed to know until he had gone through it once himself, and so the contents of this ritual had been left almost entirely up to his imagination. Still, he trusted Eri's reputation, so he would follow her regardless.

The first experience of the ceremony was the smell of wood. Burning wood, as if in a censer. The room was already lacking in oxygenation, meaning that as the smell of wood seemed to come over him, he found himself struggling not to cough from inhaling it. He didn't want to show weakness in front of a mixed cloud and knew there would be worse to come so he managed to force it down.

Then came the black liquid.

Sho, truly, had no idea what this was. It looked almost like blood, congealed blood, though he supposed that was the intention. As to what it actually was, Sho had no idea.

Eri was calling it the mountain's blood, but if he had been pressed that would have been lava? This wasn't lava, lava cooled to a far different state, and this was something far... runnier.

He wondered, just for a moment, what it actually was, but downed the drink regardless.

At first, it wasn't too unpleasant. It felt coagulated, thick, dense, something that in any other circumstance he would have taken his time and paced out consuming. But here he was in the middle of the ceremony, and he had to make a good impression, so he swallowed it down, forcing it down in one long, painful gulp, before handing the cup back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand to clean off any lingering detritus.

"That wasn't so b-" he began, before his voice was cut off, his inside suddenly feeling as if it was on fire. Mentally, he corrected his internal thought from earlier; if it wasn't lava, it sure as hell felt like it. He could feel his core beginning to light up as his outside went clammy and seemed damp with perspiration, beads of sweat falling down his face as he struggled not to bend over in active agony.

As a doctor, he would have strongly advised against anyone consuming a random liquid they were given by someone who was nearly a complete stranger. But it seemed he had ignored his own advice just to keep on good terms with a family member.

His fingernails, almost sharp as claws, moved to his legs. Each one dug in, fingers at first sinking pleasantly into the slight doughiness that came with being a non-physical specialist, before his nails began to dig in. He was using his own body like a stress ball, squeezing so hard that one of his nails had actually cut open the skin, a slow and deliberate trail of blood beginning to fall down the inside of his trousers, darkening his clothes.

Even still, he stayed standing, forcing himself not to bend or break. Even as he went completely silent, his eyes focusing on something, anything, in the middle distance. In this case, a small stone that jutted out from the rest of the rock wall, apparently wear and tear damage from being used for so long.

721 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-Rank EXP: 2/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

Around the room the various Yamamoto watched on as Shosuke drank the fluid, each individual as still as the stone around them, unmoving, watching. That he would undergo the rite was in fact nearly suicidal, for none his age had survived it previously. They had tweaked the mix, improved the seals, yet it wasn't guaranteed that their attempts at improving the chances that he would survive.

As the elixer continued to run its course Shosuke would find his inner body seeming to burn hotter and hotter, his very core heated like magma as though the substance had burned through his gut and spread to his abdomen. Despite this heat, he would feel his skin begin to freeze, the outer layers of his flesh almost turning to ice to his perception, a bizarre dichotomy of sensation that would become numbness where the two met.

The clouds of incense would waft through the room, and Shosuke might notice that all the Yamamoto within the altar room wore the clan's protective robes, Eri herself having placed her gasmask over her face as the smoke thickened, staining the dim light an opaque white filled with the scent of earth and sandalwood. His hearing would distort, Eri's voice rising through the growing fog as gaps in the smoke revealed her briefly.

"Should you survive, you will be forever one with the earth, welcomed into its embrace," she said as she slashed her hand on the altar, her blood spilling easily on the stone and causing lines of chakra to flare up around them, circles forming around the feet of the clansmen within the room, a crisscross of energy forming around the room with the lines all converging on a single point, right beneath his feet.

The chakra would surge, plunging in to Shosuke and his world would go dark, the heat and cold wiped away as everything went numb. He was aware, as far as he could tell, but without senses how could he be sure? Time, space, all lost meaning for him until a sudden pulse would become known to him, a single sensation through his body that almost vibrated it. It was slow, hard to feel, difficult to place. 

It was a heartbeat.

----

Eri meanwhile would catch Shosuke's body when it inevitably crumpled at the influx of chakra, the Chuunin arranging him on the ground in a comfortable position as she knelt at his head, hands on his forehead and eyes slid closed. For the moment, she was his anchor to reality, and through her the ability to feel the movement of the earth was meant to grow and reach him.

---

Word Count: 445
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

To say the pain was immense was to compare a trip down the stairs to a fall from the fiftieth floor.

Every inch, every fiber of his core, felt like it was on fire. Yet, despite that, his outer skin seemed like it had been frozen, like it was about to surrender to frostbite and peel off, leaving nothing beneath but bloody, flaming viscera.

Yet, Sho knew, this could not be the case.

His outside and his inside could not be experiencing such different experiences at once without limiting the other.

His mind travelled to an old song that one of his uncles had song to him as a child - ♫Heat never travels from the cooler to the hotter, you can try it if you like but you're much better not to, heat never travels from the cooler to the hotter, cos that's a physical law♫

Ignoring the sheer nerdiness of that uncle for a moment, if his internal organs were truly facing such blistering heat, they should have been cooled by whatever was happening to his skin.

This, Sho was certain, was an illusion. A stimulated feeling of pain without any actual cause. His organs could not be shutting down from overheating, because otherwise his body would be dulling the pain, would be reducing it rather than allowing it to grow hotter and hotter by the second.

It was like how a papercut paradoxically had the potential to hurt far more than an actual broken finger. After a certain point, the human mind simply couldn't conceptualize pain, and so it would begin to cut it off.

Though, as comforting as the fact that this pain was phantasmal was on a conceptual level, it sure didn't stop it being incredibly painful. In fact, if anything, he wondered just how this would actually help him reach the enlightened state they clearly wanted him to reach, togetherness with the earth.

Then the smoke came over the room, the stones lit up, and the chakra entered Shosuke. The world span. It went dark.

---

When Sho's eyes opened, he was in darkness.

The pain was gone, that was the first thing he noticed. He let out a gasp of air, a sigh of relief, and yet heard nothing. Nothing came from his mouth, even as he willed himself to talk.

It was an unpleasant experience, and yet he was certain that he was speaking, he simply could not hear it. His tongue was hale and hearty and moved just as it would if he was having a regular conversation with someone. This, he was certain, was more sensory manipulation.

So, he thought, his eyes seeing nothing but black, this was it. This was what it felt like to feel nothing. In its own dark, absurd way, it was almost comforting. Like an old friend that he had come from and would one day return to, an oblivion of sense.

Bizarrely, it reminded him of a fairy tale that he had heard from the same uncle as mentioned earlier - the Invention of Zero. A long time ago, the number system was founded, created in order to count numbers of flowers needing planting or grains of rice harvested. They formed ten numbers - One, two, three, four, and so on until they reached ten. Then, they began again, this time with the base being ten + one, ten + two, until they made twenty.

But now that people could count what they had, they had to consider what they had not.

To not have, to be devoid of, to lack. This state of blackness, blindness, reminded him of that. A perfect, conceptualized zero-state. An infinitude of emptiness. Unlike everything else in the universe, it was neither of yin, nor of yang. It simply was, and it was not, all at once.

But then that emptiness was violated. Vanquished, beaten back, all by something as simple as a pulse.

BADUMP.

He could feel it, out there in the darkness. Denying him the comfort of absolute zero yet providing him something in its place. It was faint, implacable, distant. Yet, it was all there was, the only thing in this world without quantum states. Where all else was naught, it remained in flux.

BADUMP.

And so, he reached out for it.

709 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-Rank EXP: 3/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

Her heartbeat, slow, steady, the thick clouds of scented smoke creeping through the filters of her mask enough that she could feel her own body reacting, vital functions slowing. It became worse as one of the other Yamamoto stepped forward to remove the gas mask, her deep breaths bringing her further and futher into the toxic haze of the rite.

BA DUMP, BA DUMP, BA DUMP

It was harder to focus than before, and though she knew to expect this, it was difficult to think, her attention split primarily between the near imperceptible beats of Shosuke's heart and the deeper pull of the mountain itself.

BA DUMP, BA DUMP

Her eyes slid closed, the scent of wood and spices in the air helping to lull her into the trance she would need to complete this task. It was a trial for them both really, the boy needed to truly join the clan through the Soul of the Mountain, and the girl had to prove herself capable enough to guide him. A two for one trial by fire for the clan heir candidates.

BA DUMP

Soon, all thought left her as she focused, the weak and skittering pulse of Shosuke's heart, the seemingly emptiness of the mountain, she needed to find it, find the path and connect it, just as he did. She could feel his chakra, weakly brushing against her in response to her touch, her own energy grasping his as firmly as though a hand had clasped him, and her mind focused further into the mountain, trying to find the soul that she knew lay within it.

---

For Shosuke, the feeling of reaching out would seem almost physical, and so the sensation of Eri's chakra grasping his own would appear to him as though the orange haired girl had appeared before him and taken his hand, her ethereal self tugging him further into the void around them.

Neither would remember this, nor could they explain it in the moment, but for the time being it felt right for some reason, as though they were being guided. Perhaps they were, perhaps it was a fever dream brought on by narcotics and stress. And yet, as they seemed to plunge deep into the void there came something else, a steady thrum and deep echoing sound.

BA                  DUMP

A reverberating, answering beat to their own slowed hearts, a new guide for Shosuke to follow alongside Eri.

---

Word Count: 405
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

The sensation was very strange. At first, there had been nothing, but now not only was there the noise of the mountain, but there was this awareness, this knowledge, that someone else was there. Despite not hearing them, seeing them, or seeing anything really, there was this certainty. A certainty that someone else was there, with him.

There was no point speaking, no point trying to reach out to them, and yet he did so anyway. His hand reached out, or he felt as if it did, and grabbed at the force that was in front of him. To Eri, not only did she reach out and grabbed him, but he grabbed back, firmly but calmly he just reached out and took their hand.

Not in the way that suggested vulnerability, weakness, like a child might nor as romantic or affectionate. It was just a feeling of companionship, a knowledge that she wasn't alone. That he wasn't alone.

In this great, all-encompassing darkness, they were together.

Though he had not felt particularly lonely in the void, there was something warm about this. It was intimacy in a way that he, nor likely she, had ever experienced before. A complete union of spirit, two beings with the same fate, the same direction, moving towards the same fate. It transcended the prison that was human flesh and was deeply spiritual.

Then, the shape around them seemed to change. Despite having no concept of direction, it still felt as if they were falling. No, not falling, it wasn't as if they were being grabbed by gravity, but more as if they were in an elevator headed downwards at a steady pace, descending further into the core of the mountain. It felt as if they were entering into the very heart of the earth, under the world itself, surrounded more and more by the energy of the mountain.

In the dark, still holding onto the hand of the woman next to him, he felt his body move towards the sound of the beating heart. Though direction seemed meaningless, though he knew not where he was going, he felt himself slowly but confidently trudge towards the sound of the enormous heart.

No matter what it took, no matter how far away it was, his body just continued to move, walking towards the depths of the very earth itself.

From the sheer sound of this thing, it had to be enormous. Sho was a confident doctor, he knew what a regular human heartbeat sounded like, and if things remained accurate then the heart must be tens if not hundreds of times larger than that of a human. If he got closer and it grew louder, he worried that in time he would grow deaf. Still, he walked.

464 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-Rank EXP: 4/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

Eri had been an infant when she had undergone this rite herself, and so had no memory of what it was like. To her, the unseeing sight had been an ever present part of her life, but now she was here to help guide another down the path. The fact that no one of Shosuke's age had ever survived it should have scared her, the possible failure a stain against her forever, but here in the void of the mountain there was no time for such insignificant emotions.

Instead there was the nothingness.

The communion of two as one as none and yet all.

And there was the deep, inevitable pulsing that was so loud as to vibrate their very essence.

Direction was meaningless, thought became impossible, there was only the increasingly loud beat of that massive heart that began to consume every thought. In this void of sensation, there was no sight, no smell, there was only feeling, and through that hearing. The heartbeat was felt as a vibration more than it was a sound, and after an indeterminable amount of time, it felt as though they were near the source of the immense vibrations. 

To Eri, it felt welcoming, soothing, a long beloved friend and protector. To Shosuke however it would be nearly overwhelming, impossible to properly think or feel. Acting mostly on instinct, Eri's chakra pulsed into his body, in the void this seemed to connect the boy to the heart, its beating speeding up as it began to match his own. Still immense, still overwhelming, but connected. He would have to weather it as it continued to increase, his own heartbeat increasing with it until they both raced with the speed of one who had run a marathon.

At the same time, Shosuke would be able to feel the slower, calmer pulse of Eri's heart, even as his own and the mountain's seemed to continue to speed up. Her small, practically insignificant heartbeat still pounding out a soothing rhythm.

BA DUMP, BA DUMP, BA DUMP

---

Outside of the teen's bodies, their clansmen watched impassively from behind their protective gear. Two medics monitored the young heir candidates, noting Shosuke's rapidly increasing heartrate and blood pressure, while also monitoring the chakra flow between the teens. There was nothing they could do for either of the youths, success or failure would depend on them and their mind's ability to rationalise the hallucinations and thoughts spurred on by the various chemicals that flooded their bodies.

---

Word Count: 416
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

 

Though it was impossible to tell time within this space, the vibration seemed to shake through him every few seconds. He could feel a tangible lack of physicality in his form right now, being simply part of this apparently endless darkness, yet even so it felt as if the vibration was enough to blast whatever body he did have into pieces.

It was less like an earthquake shaking the walls of a city and more like a tsunami washing over a coastal city, it was above him, below him, within him, without him. It simply was.

To say the sensation was unpleasant, though, would have been a lie.

Shosuke didn't have the same history with this place as Eri did. Though the memory of a child caused some of her recollection to be occluded from her, she could nonetheless feel as if this place was familiar. It was like returning to an old home that you had moved away from long ago.

In Sho's case, it was more like being able to meet an old friend, one that you had written long correspondence with but never seen in person. It was putting a face, or perhaps a lack of one in this case, to a name.

This was the mountain. That much was obvious.

Every second, every toll of the great bell that was this thing's aortic valve beat louder and louder and louder. By all rights, if he had ears, they should have burst by now, eardrums falling permanently silent. Yet, he had none to burst, and so there was no limit to the sheer volume that the heart could beat at. If this was in realspace, he was certain a noise this loud would have been able to be felt from Konoha, from halfway across the world. It was like the eruption of a volcano, only repeated, over and over and over again.

And yet, where Eri expected panic, and in fact most would panic, there was this odd stillness for Sho.

It was like that time in the cave with Azarea, his vines tearing people into pieces, their bodies breaking and snapping like dry wood stepped on by errant passersby. Where there should have been panic, disorder, overwhelming emotions, there was just this quiet stillness. The water rippled, yet the pond stood still.

There could be no doubt that Eri would be able to feel this, this almost inhuman level of tranquility. What was wrong with this guy? Had he been handling too many bodies? How could someone react like this to an experience like this?

Though, perhaps that was it - Perhaps that was why he was going to survive where other elder Yamamoto had failed and died in obscurity at attempting this ritual.

Bizarrely, as Eri's heart was slow and fragile, she would feel arms wrap around it, almost as if bonding with it, protecting it, nurturing it. It was like a seed planted in fertile soil, the smell of dust after rain, the sensation of being accepted.

This, it seemed, was the true form of Shosuke's soul - A life-giver.

514 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-Rank EXP 5/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

Shosuke's mind reacted with significantly more calm than most would, and though neither of them would know it, his body followed suit. Beyond the realms of their shared hallucinatory connection, the boy's vitals were massively elevated, heart rate and blood pressure dangerously high, even his chakra system massively out of sync.... but most who tried this, according to the records, had died of heart failure or chakra burns by this point. That he hadn't was... well, unprecedented, and there was undoubtedly going to be some politicking after this was all done as to establish which one of the heir candidates were the reason for this abnormality... assuming it didn't end poorly after all.

---

Connected as they were, Eri could feel Shosuke's lack of concern, his calmness and attempt almost to shield her from the external world, and yet she could also feel the way that his heart beat fast enough to be concerning, a purely physiological reaction to the situation they were in it seemed. The mountain too, beat rapidly in counterpoint to the boy's own heart, the deafening echo of its massive heart somehow not overwhelming the two weak humans.

She would not be able to describe what she did, or how, but her chakra linked to both hearts, pure willpower and determination the sole purpose behind her thoughts. While she could feel Shosuke, he could equally feel her, and he would be able to see her own soul, as sturdy and unmoveable as the mountain that sheltered their clan. Eri was will, determination, and unyielding.

Time, immeasurably long and impossibly short, brought the heartbeat of both the mountain and the boy into sync. The beats were rapid now, but aligned. With care, she tried to then sync those two with her own heart, not understanding what she was doing but operating out of instinct, her heart rate elevating while the others lowered until all three beat as one, slowly, slowly coming down as she guided the hearts to a resting state.

Only then did she disconnect from this odd chakra connection, leaving Shosuke and the mountain connected, the last touches of her chakra simply solidifying the bond between boy and the earth.

---

Orange eyes burst open, disoriented by the sudden silence as the heartbeats no longer pounded through her. Waving away the medic at her side, Eri got to her feet as gracefully as she could (which was not very, her body as unsteady as a newborn lamb), impassively straightening up to glance over the collective of their clan watching, still as statues hidden behind white robes and masks.

Her attention turned towards Shosuke, a slight frown on her face as she waited to see what happened. She wasn't unused to being given impossible tasks, but she felt like maybe, just maybe, this one would work out.

---

Word Count: 471
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

Sho had always been a strange one, a singular entity, one without compeer. Even ignoring the fact that he developed a Chakra Element that shouldn't be possible outside the Senju, his personality was calm, tranquil, composed - He was someone who's mind always thought and evaluated something before him before his emotions kicked in. Though there were occasional moments of panic, like when on the mission with Azarea, there had always been an ability for his emotions to simply shut off and to let the logical part of his brain do all the thinking.

Perhaps that was why, when surrounded by this total blackness, this overpowering drumbeat that made hearing the only sense that had any real input, he was able to accept it. He was able to simply let it be, to exist within it, to adapt to it.

One could almost see it like the allegory of a foreign organ inside one's body. It was never the organ itself that damaged the body, but the body's own rejection of the organ's presence within it. If it could simply accept it, acquiesce to it, adapt to it, it was able to handle and process it as if the organ was its own. But in attempting to reject it, to refuse it, the body's own self-defence system turned inwards and would often destroy itself, like a snake eating its own tail.

In the end, perhaps that was what was enabling Sho's ability to survive where all others failed.

Buoyed by Eri's presence as a mediator, as a mitigator, his heart eventually slowed and beat in time to the mountain's own, a single, syncopated beat. No rejection, no refusal, an acknowledgement and acquiescence to the superior power of the mountain. And such, it seemed that Sho had passed the mountain's trials, welcomed into the bosom of the great, slumbering beast.

---

Outside of his body, Eri was able to get a solid look at the young doctor's face. The faces of those who were usually undergoing the trials were faces of consternation and concern, of agony and pain and oftentimes fear. Children usually underwent these trials for a reason, not only because they were more likely biologically to survive these trials without additional damage or trauma, but because children seemed able to repress and roll with the punches a lot more than adults.

Perhaps it came from their brains that had yet to develop, but a thing that might scar or traumatise an adult for the rest of their life would oftentimes, ironically, simply be forgotten or accepted by a child who doesn't understand quite why it was so scary in the first place.

Sho, however, was an intellectual and a learned scholar. He knew a lot about the world and understood as much as he could be expected to at his young age. There was none of the innocence of youth to protect him from understanding and fearing the great danger that he was placed within.

Even so, from an external perspective, his face was cherubic, innocent, sweet. Compared to the contorted face of agony and pain that he had been cursed with when falling into this slumber in the first place, it was an almost entirely different experience.

If she was worried about him coming off as a divine being before with the propaganda of his supporters, there was no way this would help.

---

After what felt like a millennia within the embrace of the mountain, but may have been mere moments in reality, Sho's eyes slowly drifted open as well. They seemed subdued, sleep-laced compared to the sudden, frantic awareness of Eri's own, but there were open nonetheless.

607 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-Rank EXP 6/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

With Shosuke's eyes opening, the lights in the room were snuffed, leaving all in complete darkness. To most humans such a state would be equal parts disorienting and disconcerting, if not terrifying. To the Yamamoto, it simply meant that their sense of their surroundings increased to compensate for the lost eyesight. With feet firmly on the ground, no Yamamoto who had undergone the trial was blind even in such darkness.

Though for the newly initiated young man, he would not really be able to properly understand what it was he was 'seeing' and so it would be up to Eri to guide him out of this place.

"Well, you have not died yet," the girl said into the darkness as the rest of their clansmen began to filter out of the room, their nearly silent footsteps still imparting enough vibration for her to be able to see their every move clearly. Laying on the ground as he was, Shosuke's body was even easier to read, his elevated heart rate still above what it was before, though he seemed otherwise calm.

Which one of them was credited for his survival was going to depend on which one was supported more by their clan members, and after today there would be stories of Shosuke's miraculous survival attributed to the Mokuton the boy held, while others would claim it was Eri's skillful guidance that had ensured such a thing.

Who knew which was the truth?

"It's going to take you a while to get used to this, and you are going to ache for a few days, but I think you'll survive" she explained, a hand reaching out for him to take. It was a bit of a test, to see if he would find the limb in the pitch blackness.

---

Word Count: 298
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

As Sho's eyes opened, his eyes stung like hell for a fragment of a second before the lights in the room were snuffed out, pitching them all in blackness. It was a sheer and sudden relief, something that surprised him.

Sure, he had just been experiencing such clear, violent black by staring into the void of the mountain, but why should his eyes sting from being open? Surely what looked into the void was his third eye, not his actual eyes right? Why should they be affected? Or perhaps...

He stopped, deciding not to think about it any further. He could feel a knot of worry beginning to form in his stomach, his internal organs beginning to tie themselves up and get worked into a fever pitch, and he knew that was far from conducive.

Other than the sudden worry about why the light had affected him so, he could also feel something else that he had never experienced before. It felt... larger, if that made sense. It was like increasing his field of vision, but the truth was that he didn't see anything more than he had previously. No, it was a sense of... was it touch? It was almost as if he could feel things on his periphery that his body wasn't touching.

It was a strange and disorienting feeling, almost like being drunk for the first time, but he supposed that was what he had signed on for. Having an additional sense awakened was never going to be the most pleasant experience.

"Yeah... Seems like it." Sho finally responded, after what seemed at once like a miniature eternity and a fraction of a second.

His tone was slow, trying to force a tone of confidence and controlledness, but Eri would probably be able to see through it. As calm and peaceable as he was on the exterior, as controlled as his body language was, there was clearly a tone of concern, of worry, of spookedness, buried deep in the core of his voice.

And who could blame him? This was a ritual that no other adult had ever survived, he was the first adult in the Yamamoto's history to survive this ordeal.

There was a part of him that was aware that he should be dead, and yet here he was, on the cold stone floor of the underground mountain 'fortress city' that made up their home.

As Eri reached out her hand for take, Sho's hand reached out and grabbed hers. However, she could sense from his heartbeat that it had just escalated a little. Not so much from grabbing her hand but from the awareness that he had grabbed it, that he had known where it was in the first place.

It had worked?

He wasn't even sure how he'd known, he still had to get used to this...

"... Thank you, Senpai."

He forced himself slowly to his feet, using her hand as a guide, until he was standing up in the dark. His legs seemed to waver under him, but as they did so he simply held tighter to her hand, using her like a guide.

"I - I think I'm going to be fine. Let's just head for the surface for now."

538 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-Rank EXP 7/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

His hand found hers easily enough despite the darkness, which meant that he was already starting to use the clan's ability well enough, even if it was simply subconsciously. Range, sensitivity, these things could be tested later, for now it was enough to know that he hadn't died and the ability had worked to at least some extent.

She could feel his worry coming off of him, and helped to haul him to his feet so that he could properly stand. It seemed that he had been quite weakened by the ordeal, and that was to be expected considering what he had just been through. The fact that the rest of their clansmen had left already meant that it was up to her to guide him back, a final test for the both of them. 

She was growing weary of this situation, and rather hoped that their actions today would help solidify the position of heir for someone so that it could be decided on. At this stage, she almost wanted it to simply be done. She owed her uncle a lot, and had promised to try and gain the spot, but it was a burden that had influenced her life more than she would have liked.

"Slow and steady Shosuke-san, the mountain is patient and will wait for you" she stated into the pitch black, not letting go of his hand but guiding him along the path towards the upper sections of their home. She wouldn't warn him about steps or obstacles however, trying to get a feel for what his senses would pick up even this early in the process. While he might not be at full strength for a Yamamoto as trained as he was, he should be able to find steps and avoid stones without too much difficulty.

Where this would go next... well, that was hard to judge.

---

Word Count: 313
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke