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Quietly, both teams walked to the edge of the cliff before walking over the edge and using chakra to walk down the cliff face until they reached the ground below, right in front of the cave entrance.
After checking the entrance of the cave for a moment, the two teams entered slowly, quietly, and carefully. Checking everything as they took each step. They were also met with a stench they smelled many times before, a smell that they had grown accustomed to and numb to. The smell of death and blood.
As they ventured deeper into the cave, the light emanating from the entrance disappeared gradually until the environment turned pitch black, which wasn't a problem for the Anbu team.
The problem was that they soon reached a point where the cave split into two pathways. As the two teams eyed the two pathways, it became apparent that they needed to split.
Inu turned toward Ryuu with the silent question of who goes where, as Ryuu could sense where the targets were.
After a moment, Ryuu turned to the others before starting to form the Anbu sign language.
'You(pointing at team Ro). Go Left…. We(pointing to himself and Phoenix). Go right. Stay. Together…. Be. Careful.'
The other nodded before splitting, each team moving into their designated passage.
Minutes later;
Team Shi has been moving slowly and quietly through the dark cave when they spotted a light way ahead of them. The light seemed to be flickering ever so slightly, meaning that its source was a candle or an open flame. The smell of blood also increased greatly; the still air inside the cave seemed to be saturated with the smell at this point.
Ryuu looked at Phoenix for a moment while she looked at him, and with a silent agreement, they continued to approach the light source. As they grew nearer, they found out that the cave passage curved sharply to the right.
As the two were about to reach the corner, they suddenly halted their movement as a humanoid shadow appeared, cast by the light emanating from beyond the corner. The shadow stopped for a moment, making the two members of Team Shi reach for their weapons just in case. And it struck true as the shadow seemed to turn towards the corner that Team Shi hid past, before the shadow started to grow bigger and clearer on the opposite side of the light source, accompanied by the sound of the approaching steps, it meant one thing.
Just as the shadow owner cleared the corner, Pheinex's hand latched onto the front of his clothing and yanked him towards her, while Ryuu's Katana already met that person's neck, separating the head from the body.
Phoenix let out a quiet sigh, assuming they avoided detection for now, only for her to see Ryuu looking at the severed head, lying on its side, intently, before being slightly startled by seeing Ryuu stab the severed head's brain with his Katana while also stabbing the still attached part of the neck, along with the mouth, with Kunai.
The display internally startled Pheneix greatly, along with the shock and horror when she saw the head trying to move its mouth while its eyes looked at them with anger and madness.
After staring at the head for a couple of moments, Phoenix looked at Ryuu before asking in Anbu sign language.
'Is. He. Like. The one. You. Fought?' While she was briefed about the abilities she might see, it was still shocking to see it firsthand.
Ryuu just nodded while also deep in thought.
'This one has a similar signature to Hidan. There are two others like him. I still find it hard to believe that they can survive decapitation and being stabbed in the head. How different is the stronger signature?' Ryuu thought to himself.
Ryuu pulled out a prisoner transport scroll before pulling his Katana out of the head and sealing the head in the prisoner scroll while leaving the rest of the body lying there for now.
He then looked at Phoenix before signaling to continue.
As Ryuu turned back towards the corner, Phoenix took a silent, calming breath before following Ryuu.
After checking that the coast was clear, the two went past the corner and into a huge underground space. As soon as they saw what was inside, they were filled with shock and horror at what they saw.
A huge, well-lit, roughly circular room, almost a hundred meters in diameter.
In the middle, there was a huge symbol on the ground, similar to what Hidan drew before, but it was far more complex.
There is a huge circle with an inverted triangle in the middle, with the triangle's corners touching the edge of the circle. The symbol was repeated four more times, but smaller in size, three on each corner of the larger triangle, with these three connected to the last one in the middle of the entire thing.
(Image here)
The entire symbol was carved in the ground, each line and curve was like a shallow pathway in the ground that had very faint remnants of blood.
What earned the shock and horror from Team Shi was the multiple dead bodies that lay inside the three symbols at the edge of the largest triangle. The bodies of children and young women were very pale and slightly shriveled, with multiple cuts and piercing wounds on their necks, limbs, and abdomen, with traces of blood pointing to the fact that the blood in their bodies was pulled out and into the carved channels of the symbol before flowing towards the symbol in the middle.
That wasn't all, aside from the bodies, there were numerous human skulls scattered around the edges of the room, with some piled up beneath symbols carved in the wall or painted with what is most probably blood.
Team Shi seemed calm while looking at the scene, but internally, they were horrified. This is most likely a kill room, a sacrificial altar. The scene was so disturbing, haunting, and brutal for anyone, even the most experienced Shinobi or Anbu. What increased the level of disturbance was that the bodies and the skulls were all of children or young women, specifically.
'This… this is horrific.' Ryuu thought to himself as he actively suppressed his emotions from going haywire.
'You humans manage to surprise me every day, and not in a good way.' Kurumi's voice came cold and filled with disgust.
Ryuu didn't reply as his senses locked onto multiple signatures nearby, and as he looked in the direction, he saw multiple closed doors on the opposite side of the room.
Ryuu looked at Phoenix, who seemed to still be in a slight daze from what she was seeing, before tapping her slightly, snapping her out of it.
'Multiple. Signature. Ahead (pointing at the direction of the doors)… Eyes. up… Be ready.' Ryuu communicated with Anbu sign language, to which Phoenix nodded slowly and stiffly.
There would be time later to come to terms with what they just saw.
To be continued.
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