[Futago Yua]

The day after Yua had met her cousin Kumori and they’d already made plans. They weren’t plans to go out and look at pretty dresses or anything like that, though Yua probably wouldn’t have been that much against it, but to go on a mission outside of the village, and into a hole. For her part, the purple haired genin was most excited for the ‘outside of the village’ part, less so the hole. Taking what she’d been told Yua thought ahead and grabbed a couple of flashlights and a spare set of batteries on top of her usual equipment. They weren’t too bright but were probably safer in a cave than the open flame of a torch. She also picked up a pickaxe when they arrived at the location, not sure she’d be able to break through the rock on her own in the event it turned out to be rather thick.

Their final destination was apparently a cavern deeper into the tunnel system that had been worked on carefully for some time now. They were to investigate it, widen the opening so work could extend into the new area, and ensure that there were no future dangers to the digging and construction teams that would inevitably be sent down after they were done. All in all a rather simple mission that helped the village.

While the pair had a moment to survey the cavern system from the outside Yua made sure to do a few stretches, just to be on the safe side. "Well, I’m not sure about you Kumori, but I’m pretty sure I’m ready. Sounds like the way down is secure so hopefully no surprises until we get ta’ the new area. From there it’s all us.”

[Futago Kumori]

Kumori follows after her younger and shorter cousin on the way out of the village to their own mission, staring into the tunnel curiously; the purple-haired Genin had brought along quite a few of the supplies they would need, and Kumori herself brought some of her own, curious about whether or not this mission had something to do with the mission she had gone on with the Kusa Lord, as well as her good friend Azusaki. Kumori had also brought along the weapons she'd had when the two girls had first met at the gate for their guarding duty. Not that she thought she might need to use them, but it was safer to have them on her than to leave the village without them, even if banditry was relatively rare in Nohara no Kuni.

Other miners were milling around or resting, a few were even drunk, although when the more sober workers had seen the girls coming, they'd done their best to get the most rowdy and wild alcoholics into their worker tents so that they wouldn't make a scene. Clearly, they were waiting for the Genin to do the job of getting the cavern system ready for a longer and more strenuous workload involving a far larger team of mixed ashigaru and hired workers.

Kumori's attention turns to Yua when she speaks, so she can respond to Yua's statement that she was ready to get the mission started.

"Hmmmm. I sure hope there's nothing else in there. If anything else, it'll provide a good workout if there isn't anybody strange down in the caverns. Oh, and do keep an eye out for any cave-in. That's more dangerous than anything else."

[Futago Yua]

Yua nodded to her cousin’s sound advice. When travelling through tunnels the risk of cave-ins was a constant threat, though considering the nature of the mission she expected that shouldn’t be an issue until they hit the uncharted, deeper caverns.

"At least the route in should be safe though, RIGHT GUYS?” Yua rose her voice considerably from the casual discussion earlier, trying to get the attention of the workers for confirmation and likely startling some of the drunker individuals into a confused panic. Once she hard something of an agreement from the surrounding workers she flashed a smile up at Kumori and handed her one of the flashlights. "I think just the one is goin’ to be more than enough all things considered, but if we get split up its better to be safe than sorry.”

With formalities and cautious planning out of the way, Yua lead her cousin into the tunnel system cautiously. At first she let the slowly dimming sunlight reveal the path but before long the need for their portable lighting would be needed. The purple haired genin clicked her flashlight on to continue to reveal their path, thankfully the route they were to take was marked down to the deeper cavern. This part of the journey was more like a long, boring formality before the real work began.

[Futago Kumori]

Kumori sighs a little when Yua tries to get the workers to chime in, but it seems they only get a bit of confusion at first before they get any kind of agreement about what information she'd requested. It did not exactly inspire confidence in her, but at least she was going down with Yua as well, which would make the job a bit easier if anything went wrong, or so she hoped. She nods when Yua suggests that they both bring down flashlights, and she accepts the offered tool before looking back down again, then follows her cousin into the cavernous hole.

Kumori still didn't really like the cramped conditions underground, nor the fact that the light from outside seemed to disappear so quickly, as though the earth itself was swallowing up the sunlight and forcing them to bring flashlights out. The more experienced gate guard allows Yua to use her flashlight exclusively for now, since Kumori doesn't really need to. One flashlight would light up just as much area as two flashlights, and they only needed to mostly see in front of them. As they walk, though, Kumori takes a rock from the ground, holding it with her fingers and lightly scraping circle into the support posts as they walk through the tunnel; if at any point the tunnels might split, they would want to know which way to go in order to leave, but she's a bit surprised that there doesn't seem to be much communication between the two. Perhaps the stone and dirt walls sucked up conversation just as easily as it sucked up sunlight.

[Futago Yua]

Yua appreciated her cousin’s forward thinking nature as they travelled deeper into the tunnels. If the point of this area was to be built up into something, then there were bound to be a few side paths, and the clearer markers leading them deeper might not be so clear on the way out. The purple haired girl was quite quiet on their way in, listening out carefully for any unusual sounds and trying her best to quieten her steps too. The information they’d been given didn’t specify any specific threats but did warn to be careful, so she didn’t want her voice echoing around too much and concealing potential dangers.

Eventually the two would come to the end of the tunnel and to a small section around a large, dark crack within the rock. It looked big enough for the pair to enter, and there seemed to be some ropes hammered into the ground nearby, predicting some sort of drop. When they drew closer Yua would shine her torch within, revealing a space that extended below, clearly the area they had to investigate and ‘crack open’.

"This looks like it ta' me.” Yua whispered to Kumori, still trying to keep noise down as best she could. "I doubt those workers could do more than send a man or two down to look around. No way any of their gear could fit either. What do ya’ recon? Check it out first or open ‘er up?”

[Futago Kumori]

Kumori finds herself looking down into the strange crack, wondering what the ropes hammered into either side of it must mean. While someone could have come down through the crack, it wasn't wide enough for there to be a lot of work that could involve tools, so it was unlikely to have had much work done on it. She wonders if perhaps anyone might have ended up stuck down there, and her momentary feelings of claustrophobia spike suddenly, which she has to combat by gulping hard once or twice to rid herself of the desire to vomit from the fear of having to try and climb down into such a small space. It was strange, she didn't feel quite so claustrophobic on their way down, even if the walls had started to become a bit closer, but the feeling was much stronger now. When she finally recovers enough to speak, she makes her intentions clear.

"We should open it up more. Our view now is limited even if we do check it out, and we'll see a lot more if we can open this up even wider and get a good look inside."

Perhaps it was because of the last cave-in she'd experienced when going on a very similar mission with Azusaki and Lord Ichi, but she seemed eager to leave the cave ever since they'd come inside.

[Futago Yua]

Yua nodded at her cousin’s advice. Slipping into the next chamber was doable, but leaving a narrow entrance behind them could make retreat dangerous. But that wasn’t all, her cousin’s discomfort was evident now that they were standing close together and not constantly moving deeper and the Ramiaa lookalike couldn’t help but soften her face in concern. "Hay, if you need a moment just speak up.” It was clear to Yua her cousin was trying to be brave, and even if she wasn’t too sure about what she didn’t mind if being brave took a few moments.

Once she was sure her cousin was good Yua investigated the crack carefully. She was no engineer, and had no real experience in mining, but being careful and precise was something she was familiar with when it came to Chakra, so she did her best to apply that same logic to the situation at hand. The girl slowly checked out the strength of the rock around the crack, going so far as to stick her head and flashlight in to investigate it from the other side.

"I think its best we approach it from here.” She concluded once the investigation was done. "The rock is likely to fall to the other side of the crack, so if we’re careful and keep rubble to a minimum we won’t have to worry too much. Seems to slope mostly downwards on that side so I can see why they wanted the ropes.”

[Futago Kumori]

Kumori frowns a little when Yua tells her that if she needs a moment, that she only needs to speak up, but in this low light, the other girl likely won't be able to see her facial expression before she closes her eyes and calms herself from the automatic frustrated response. She knows she really feels this upset because she actually is terrified, and she's not willing to really admit it to herself, or to Yua. She really should speak up, but she puts on a brave face instead and clears her mind after a moment.

"Never better. We put the mission first here in Kusagakure; so let's finish the mission so we can leave this place."

Kumori watches with a bit of apprehension as Yua examines the crack in the tunnel's stone, feeling a bit like it's her responsibility to keep a hold of Yua so she won't fall in if she slips at all, but also not wanting to get too close to the crack herself and risk falling in as well. At least her cousin seems to be sure enough of herself, and she returns safely, so she silently chides herself for being so anxious for nothing. Kumori listens to the conclusions of the girl that looks a bit too much like the traitor of their clan and country, and draws her greatsword as she herself approaches the crack, wondering for a moment at the ropes on either side of it, before she reaches down and starts pulling at the ropes experimentally, looking to see if there's any weight at the ends of them. There might be people down there, after all, and they don't want rubble falling on their heads.

[Futago Yua]

Yua nodded to her cousin. The mind was not an area she had much experience with, so as long as Kumori was able to push through, she’d accept it and move on. If the mission was what it took to get her out of here, then the mission would just have to be done as quickly as possible. As the older woman investigated the ropes she would discover they were hanging loose and were easy to pull out of the hole. If someone had been down there before them they had likely come back up, else the miners outside would have likely mentioned missing comrades as they came in. For now they’d likely be the best way for the pair to go deeper, once they’d opened up the crack some more.

"Would ya’ mind lightin’ things up?” Yua asked, hefting the pickaxe she’d brought with them. "I don’t want to half ass this.”

Once she had good view of what she was doing, Yua would carefully bring the pick down on a number of points around the crack in a slow circle. The purple haired girl would slowly adjust her position and weight to make sure she wasn’t about to go tumbling down through the expanding hole as large chunks of rock tumbled and rolled into the darkness below them. Before long she would have more than doubled the space they had to work with, revealing a wide open space below them that they’d still need the ropes to safely descend into, assuming Kumori didn’t know how to walk up walls.

"Dunno how that’s gonna look below, but at least we can see now?” Yua asked, wiping the sweat from her brow after the careful work so far. "Sure hope nothing was asleep down there.”

[Futago Kumori]

Yua seems to have backed off on asking if she was okay, and she actually feels a bit bad about how she'd responded, but she can always make it up to her cousin once they leave the mine. For now, she needs to keep her focus on the mission so she doesn't end up feeling that claustrophobic sensation again. She'd really need to take care of that knot of fear, since nobody had even died in the cave-in during the previous mission, and she had even personally assisted with the evacuation to make sure even the ashigaru had made it clear of the cave before it had caved in.

She's a bit lost in her own thoughts when Yua asks if she could light things up, bringing her back to the here and now. Kumori fully puts the thoughts out of her mind so she can turn on the flashlight and make sure its beam of light is pointed at the crack so that Yua can see what exactly she's doing and how well she's breaking apart the rock. Once Yua takes a short break in her breaking of the stone crack, Kumori herself leans closer, pointing the flashlight down into the hole to see the broken rock at the floor far down below, and she scoffs a little as Yua suggests that there might be something asleep down there.

"I doubt anything could live down there for very long. What would it even eat?"

With that somewhat disturbing thought hanging in the air for longer than the particles of rock that had been floating after all of Yua's hard work, Kumori sighs and then starts to slip her way down through the crack, using the Act of Tree Climbing to keep herself from going all the way down into the darkness.

[Futago Yua]

"Who knows? Cave fungus? Other things livin’ down here? For all we know there’s another opening somewhere for them to swarm outta at night to fill their bellies!” Yua didn’t really want to believe that there was something in the caverns below but her practicality and desire not to be surprised by anything made her voice such silly ideas. Kumori was probably right anyway and she was convinced the proud Futago shinobi would not be spooked by such casual and unconvincing words.

Unlike her cousin, Yua didn’t have any fanciful technique to approach the climb down. The purple haired girl instead tested the stability of the ropes left behind before using one to help slow her decent into the properly opened cavern, being careful not to get rope burns on her hands. Her biggest worry was getting down below safely. Once they were both safely down she’d use her flashlight to be able to gauge if she needed the rope to get back up, or if she’d be able to use an actual techniques to simply jump back up. It certainly looked possible now she could see it from this angle, but jumping down this far would have probably hurt a lot.

"You’re gonna have to teach me that technique some time, hun. Unless you know someone who’d be a better teacher!”

[Futago Kumori]

Kumori herself remembers how much she'd struggled to try and learn how to do the Surface Walking Technique, since her chakra control wasn't necessarily all that great, as soon as Yua suggests having her own cousin teach it to her. She giggles a little at the memory, despite how the cave walls and the darkness around her made her feel as though she was still in a somewhat tighter space. For now, at least, the thought of teaching her cousin something she could only barely do well enough to get down to the bottom of the cave was just a bit too silly for her, and distracted her from the fear.

"Hmmmm, well... Koji-kun would likely be a much better teacher than I would be. He's done a lot more training of Ninjutsu than I have, and he's a lot better at it, too. He has more of a natural talent than I do..."

She pauses as she turns on the flashlight, pushing back on the darkness and causing the area around her to light up a bit more from the light bouncing off the stone walls that made up the cavern. Despite her earlier insistence that there wasn't anything alive down there, she was acting as though she herself wasn't so sure that this was the case. After all, Yua was right about them possibly eating cave fungus in order to survive, and she wasn't about to take any chances in this cramped area, where she likely wouldn't be able to build up to a very high speed.

"Do you see anything on your side, Yua? It's fairly clear over here, so far. Just wet stone walls and a couple of tunnels that lead to who knows where... probably dead ends."

[Futago Yua]

Yua had not expected to hear giggles out of her cousin in response to her question. If she were to be honest, she never expected to hear Kumori, who had been so serious with her up until now, to giggle at all. It brought a smile to the purple haired girl’s face, though thankfully it was hidden in the darkness. When the older girl explained her experience with ninjutsu to be lacking Yua nodded, it made sense considering how most of the family seemed to love the sword, you didn’t really need much control of chakra for that, just control over their body.

"Koji-kun? No idea who that is. You’ll have to introduce us when we’re not uh, busy.” Yua didn’t really want to bring the moment down but they were in the middle of a mission, but Kumori’s words were quite interesting. The fact that her cousin was willing to recommend someone better than herself at something was high praise indeed. Sometimes pride could get in the way of individuals recognising others, but it was quite encouraging to hear such words of self-acknowledgement from the other girl.

Once Yua touched down she clicked her own light back on to navigate the rubble caused by her earlier digging efforts. Now that the pair was down here it was clear that the cavern opened up considerably to the point that two lights were needed to properly illuminate most, if not all, of the space. As the two women moved forward to investigate Yua panned her light in the opposite direction, speeding up their investigation significantly. Things looked mostly stable down here, with a couple of side tunnels leading off to who knows where but nothing too alarming, at least until Kumori spoke up.

"Wet stone and walls?” Yua walked to Kumori’s side to get a better look. There was indeed moisture down here, which meant there could be something dangerous. An underground mass of water maybe? "Well, we’re going to need to at least scout out and confirm these tunnels are empty but I think we better check this one out first. We don’t want our workers to be surprised by a flood coming in from the side.” The purple haired girl didn’t want to add her concerns about such a place potentially having living creatures in it too, but she was certainly thinking about it as she started walking towards the most moisture stricken pathway.

[Futago Kumori]

Kumori nods when Yua suggests introducing the two of them, then realizes that in this darkness, her cousin wouldn't be able to see the gesture, so she should really respond verbally to the suggestion. She really didn't like the darkness of the cave, but at least so far there seemed to be no real danger for the two girls down in this cave, which was momentarily putting her mind at ease.

"Yes, I'd be more than happy to introduce the two of you. I'm not really surprised you two haven't met yet, though, since he was a gate guard only before you arrived, but became an Academy Student instructor by the time you were given the gate guard job."

Kumori frowns a little at the suggestion of an underground flood, an idea that somewhat terrifies the other kunoichi. After all, the two of them were the only ones down there at the moment, and if it might flood any minute, doesn't that mean they should immediately leave? But Yua was right about the fact that the two of them needed to go and explore the side tunnels a little, just to verify that there were no dangers hiding away for the workers, especially since they would likely be sent down those same side tunnels to dig them out. If the ashigaru were in danger after they'd cleared the caves, they'd be the ones held responsible ultimately, and that would likely result in some very severe punishment. So, despite her misgivings, she takes a deep breath and watches Yua go into her own side tunnel before Kumori calls in after her.

"You search this one, I'll stay out here; when you come back, I'll take tunnel crawling duty while you keep watch outside for me."

She thinks she hears some kind of scurrying noise, but the strange acoustics of the cave makes it sound like it echoes all around and the noise becomes impossible to pinpoint as she turns her head, the flashlight hand instinctively following to try and look around for the source of the noise as she reaches her free hand back and over her shoulder for her greatsword.

"Yuaaa...?"

[Futago Yua]

"Sounds like a plan.” Yua replied cheerily, she didn’t want to add that it was good because it meant they’d always have someone in the main chamber so they’d never actually lose it. Such thoughts were already making her panic a little, so she could only imagine how they’d impact Kumori in her slightly off state.

As she wandered into the pathway Yua kept panning her light. She wanted to be sure to follow the source of the moisture if she came across branching pathways but thankfully it seemed to lead to another side cavern. It wasn’t too big, probably less than half the size of the larger chamber that was the focus of their investigation, but it seemed to be the source of the moisture. The problem was, Yua couldn’t see what the source of the moisture actually was. As she panned her light across the walls there seemed to be some odd, lumpy things of a different colour stuck to the walls with no rhyme nor rhythm, almost like something sprayed out a weird goop on everything. They seemed to be the source of the excessive moisture coming from this area, which made Yua shudder though she wasn’t too sure why.

Moving further into the space Yua continued to shine her light, picking up the odd scurrying noise around her as she did so but not seeing anything at first. It looked like there may have been another pathway back to the main cavern from this side chamber. The purple haired girl shone the light that way too, only for more scurrying sounds to echo out along the tunnel, followed by Kumori calling her name a moment later. That confirmed the tunnel was connected at least, so Yua dashed down the tunnel, hoping to confirm the connection and rule out another tunnel, but also wanting to get back to her cousin as quickly as possible.

Yua’s light was unsteady thanks to the short run, but when she came bursting out of another side tunnel to meet back up with Kumori, she couldn’t help but stop and stare for a moment. There, looming behind her cousin, was what could only be described as an excessively large cockroach that was actively trying to avoid the other woman’s flashlight.

"Kumori! Behind!” Her voice from behind may have shocked her cousin but Yua threw herself at the creature from the side, palms out in the thrust of Janken: Paa in an effort to shove it away. The large creature would fly into the nearby wall with a gross squelching sound, but not sustain much damage. The whole point of Yua’s technique was to create breathing room after all. The purple haired girl immediately started rubbing her hands on her jacket, as though trying to get a stain out of them. "Eww, gross, gross, gross, gross, gross, gross.”

Unfortunately for the two girls, there wasn’t just one creature. The scurrying sounds continued around them, even the first bug got back up and scurried quickly into the darkness. Yua immediately started panning the room with her own light once again, every time it moved more scurrying could be heard as though the creatures hated light. "You wouldn’t happen to know how to burn down a cave?” she asked nervously.