Prelude - Ikari, Kayo, Satoshi

Satoshi frowns at the missive on the folded paper before refolding it and returning it to the nook. As he contemplates the message and how it might be related to the bloody fog barrier that had followed them from the ojizo, he overhears the voices of his companions from the inn somewhere in the small village.

He follows the voices toward the building where the two bakuto and the guardsman are. "Psst!" he calls out as he approaches. Realizing that he probably looks like a ghost with his blood stained skin, he slowly steps into the light from Ikari's lantern with his palms open wide. "I followed you from the inn. A tainted fog has enclosed the village." His face and voice are familiar but the blood red skin is new. "We are in danger," he mutters to himself.

While his current team comprised of agents operating independently, as befitted their current mission, Satoshi was aware of the identities of the others by given name. The signature te in Kanji would have been from Terada, another shinobi using this same drop. This meant that Terada must have also operated from roughly this same region. Did his sphere of duty also cover this village? Such a request would have been directed at their jounin, who had yet to see this note. Nor did their superior leave either Terada or Satoshi any new instructions in the drop.

Satoshi understood the term karakurenai to simply mean red, or more speciically a vivid vermillion imported from the Middle Kingdom. Perhaps someone more familiar with colours and dyes and such trade might know more. The reference to red was surely not a coincidence, although the colour of Satoshi's stains were not at all vivid, more a dull maroon, almost black in the night. He had no idea what the twins referred to.

"We aren't searching," Kayo corrected smoothly Sawada with a soft smile, the newly acquired hyoshigi swinging gently from her delicate neck. "Merely investigating." Before any retort could form, a figure emerged from the darkness, bloodied and clad in black. Had he been the source of the earlier carnage, she wondered with a chill creeping up her spine.

"Danger?" Kayo questioned, her voice laced with a sudden unease. "How... and why are you covered in blood? You haven't harmed anyone, have you?"

So we're trapped here. Sawada is right we need to tell someone and maybe gather the village before people get swallowed in the fog one by one.

"The blood... there is a heavy red fog around the village. It did this as I passed through it," he says. "It does more than just stain my skin. I feel different somehow. It is... hard to explain."

He considers how much to tell them and decides to blend truth and misdirection with minimal words. "Something strange is happening in the forest. I'm not sure if this fog is part of it. Have you found anything in the village?"

Seeing the elegant and worldly Lady Kayo again, he wonders if she would know anything about..."karakurenai." He unintentionally mutters the word while thinking about it.

Sawada, ever dutiful, had voiced his mild protest, but did attempt to make the most of the circuit that Ikari and Kayo made of the houses so far. He was after all vested to find evidence of what happened to the constable. "Are you saying we are trapped here?" He said with some alarm when Satoshi presented himself suddenly, his courage faltering for a moment. "Only Nira's arm made it out..." he mumbled, the disparate evidence hard for him to connect. Now slightly less sure of himself, he looked to the others to propose what they would do next, although he still seemed inclined to visit the elder.

My gut tells me we'll find honesty and information with the young woodsman. Kayo, do you want to be in front answering the door.
An elegant face will be disarming, and we'll be you entourage.

"I believe it's more appropriate for a man to introduce ourselves first. I'm merely a homeless maiden, after all, so please, go ahead." She didn't intend to be the first to receive a punch if things turned violent.

Satoshi bows and says, "I would go first, but I'd certainly frighten the woodsman. However I will be close by, Ikari-san, ready to assist if needed."

The four of them considered how best to signal their arrival and to whom, especially under conditions they deemed fraught with uncertain danger. Satoshi could feel the debilitating, yet primal effect of the blood mist, which both weakened him and yet emboldened him at the same time. They approached the entrance of the woodsman's house that Ikari had peeked into as if they were normal visitors, not creeping about.

The door swung open, the man whom Ikari had spied on earlier greeted them with an axe in hand, a mere tool, but still serviceable for self defense. He was in his thirties, with tanned skin made darker by the lit lamp in the background that hadn't quite yet faded despite the absence of the sun. Looking past him revealed an interior whose furniture appeared humble and handcrafted.

"Who are you? And how did you get here?" The tension in his arm indicated he was ready to fight off any intruder.

Ikari comically looks to Kayo, wanting to keep traditional decorum,
then to our Shinobi stranger, ragged with blood stains,
then to Sawada, with his sheepish expression.
Ikari quietly panics, playing up his need for the walking stick.
"umm.. Sorry to intrude, we are from the small village over the hill.
We came to find the missing constable when the red fog came.
What has happened here?

The hand with the axe did not relax. "What missing constable? No one has visited this village since the eclipse. How did you manage to get here?" Either the young woodsman was lying or hiding something, or ignorant of what was happening. If what he claimed was true, doshin Nira never made it to Itsuno. But more disturbingly, if there was something preventing others from reaching the village, how did the three of them enter?

"Perhaps the ojizo made an opening for us, regardless we seem to be stuck here now.
We mean you no harm, nor are capable of it.
Doshin Nira, the constable, was responding for a request for help."

Satoshi slowly stepped forward to stand next to Ikari. He knew from the dead drop that the Koga had certainly been active in the area since the eclipse. "No one has come to the village recently? Strange... I talked to someone just the other day who said he had passed through Itsuno." The shinobi tries to read the man's face even though the shadow cast from the lantern inside the hut makes it difficult.

From the frown on the man's face it was evident that he was puzzled at Satoshi's proclamation. Satoshi was dead certain Terada had been here, his message was incontrovertible proof of that. And Sawada was also confident that constable Nira had told them that he was going to Itsuno in response to a plea for aid, to investigate the blood rain, the very phenomenon hinted at by the mist Satoshi experienced.

"Not possible. I might have been out, but the village would know if anyone came. There are only four of us left here. Maybe Koji-san knows something. We go see him." He still held his weapon, but at least now the woodsman did not look like he was about to use it on any of them as he stepped out of his house with the lantern. "Come. But do not mention anything about his wife," he reminded curtly.

A palpable anxiety gripped Kayo with the pervasive blood mist shivers down her spine. Yet, with ingrained grace she offered the commoner a flawless bow, her serene smile a stark and unsettling contrast to the grim atmosphere. She was an undeniable beauty, utterly out of place in this creepy village.

Satoshi nods and follows the woodsman from his house. "Have you been to the woods recently? My friend mentioned something strange hiding there."

As they walk through the dark village, he speaks to Ikari and Kayo. "I might have a way to get past the blood fog if we need to. But let's see if Koji-san knows anything."

"Wonderful!" Kayo declared. "I wish to leave this village, but a man named Nira lost an arm down the road, and we've been trying to locate him. " She proceeded to explain their search, entirely unaware that the bloodied Satoshi before them was with them earlier under another disguise.

"Only 4 left! ok lets go see Koji-san"

Kayo nods elegantly and follows Ikari-san to visit this Koji-san.