Time to do work! (Day 1. The Entrance)

Takigakure has probably an intricate pathway systems that would probably put some of the lesser villages and major villages idea of "hidden" to shame. In the past, many of the villages were very bold when it came to hidden. They took pride of them being in the open, which, in Riku opinion, was beyond stupid. Villages would rather risk getting attack then actually stay true to the name of the shinobi, which to stay hidden at all cost, hide in the shadow and strike in the light when it was nessecary. Shinobi had moved away from that philosophy and now do ridiculous stunts like build more technology to make lives easier for not only shinobi but villagers as well. Takigakure, was not among one of them. Because they stayed true to the old ways, Riku had more of a respect for people like them rather than the major villages that exist today. Primative, yes. They were indeed primative but no far away from the techonological gap that many other lessers villages have subcome to.

Riku could hear the tumblng of water falling from the cliff. The elevation in this entrance was quite low so when Riku was walking towards the edge, he could see nothing but water disappearing downward and the open blue sky. Well, evening sky that was turning from blue to orange. It was definitely getting late and Riku had to get into the village before nightfall. Riku was happy that he had some skills in sensory, otherwise this would turn out to be a waste of his time. Takigakure were truly hidden away from the sights of anyone wishes to see it. Takigakure had taken much pride in its intricate design for it was one of the oldest in existance. Not known by many nowadays, it was also where a few of the strongest shinobi were born from. The Chisoku clan, the clan of assasins, was a prime example of powerful clans. Now nonexistant, it was just a faded memory of Takigakure.

One person who came from this village was a man who was in the Akatsuki during of Madara's reign was a man named Kakuzu. The man was a immortal but to his father, he wasn't truly an immortal. There are immortals, like the Shikyo, who did not need constant check to see if they were gonna die or not. His father described Kakuzu as a man who lusted over life, who wanted to take life away from the hand of God. The Shikyo respect life as it was a natural form of existance and hated those who would take life as a way to operate there own hideous ideals. Riku read that somewhere in one of his fathers old journals he use to write in. It was definitely old but it was still kept in shape because of his father meticulous and almost obsessive compulsion to make everything neat and nice. Riku stopped at the edge of the cliff, looking down at the probable 100 maybe 150 feet fall towards the river the went west. It was heading towards Kusagakure. He takes a few steps back and reach into his vest to take out the journal. He went to the beginning pages of journal. There, he saw an entry date with a few pages of words that Riku was looking for. It was definitely his father handwriting, somewhat of a mess but Riku assumed that he didn't have much of a surface to write on. :

May 19th

Warm, but cloudy.

It's been a few months after the massacre, I still have dreams of myself slaying those who did not commit a crime. I guess they were about to commit a crime but did we hav to go kill everyone? The children, the young children who were no older than me? God, it was awful, terribly awful for what I did. I'm guessing Itachi has the same feeling and probably has the same dreams. But we both dont show it. I hope he is doing good and my brother. I miss mother and father dearly.

Jouten-sama is taking me to Takigakure today. I guess I should be excited. I dont know why but that is what Jouten told me to be. Excited. I've been to Takigakure before when I was on a mission for my former employer but I guess this would be anything but a mission. He said he had to go and find something about a member in the Akat that was giving him a bit of money trouble. I think Jouten is afraid that the "bastard" as Jouten calls him rip him off of money so he might have to deal with him. Takigakure is where he orginates so he is gonna start there....

He almost forgot about this entry. Riku assumed that he was thirteen at the time since he was the same age as Itachi at the time. Both prodigies, both powerful opponents. That was in one of the entries in another journal he had. Riku turns a few pages to get the next entry:

May 21st
Cloudy

I dont know how but we got some training done when we got in. I think I'm getting the hang of mastering my chakra. It's difficult like no other, I have to admit. I guess I have to blame my genetics for that. But nonetheless, I've almost master this enlightenment ability Jouten's been teaching me. He said even for my chakra capacity, I'm acceling. We are hiding in a shed now. It looks abandon and probably no one will suspect of anything living in here. Jouten went out to go and mediate while I sit here and read some information on the village. I didn't know Takigakure was one of the older villages. Pretty neat to be honest.....


May 22nd

Warm all throughout, clear skies

Jouten ask me to inflitrate the highest command in the village to find anything on Kakuzu. There wasn't a problem, I thought it was too easy for me and thought that it might've been a trap, but I covered my tracks. Even if they had the best trackers, they couldn't even find a single hair on me.

I found some stuff on the guy. Kakuzu. He is old. A child compared to Jouten and my dad but more or less old in human terms. The guy has been alive for quite sometime now. He took something from the village that made him live for a very long time, a parital immortal. He could be killed anytime but it would be difficult because the type of ninjutsu it is is consider forbidden.

They say a shinobi body is like a treasure of information for other villages to have. I guess every organ, heart and all, has its treasure. That's what this jutsu does. That's what Kakuzu jutsu is. He takes the hearts of others and uses them to live. Reading the scroll, I also found out that the guy has also more abilities regarding to ninjutsu. What kind of village holds store of something like that? I guess every villlage has one or many. I know Konoha does. Konoha has alot more. Something that Itachi and I discussed three months ago during our training with Madara.

Riku closed the journal, placing it back into his back pocket and zipped the back pocket up. He walks back over to the edge cliff. He was deciding whether or not he wanted to jump into the water head first or just climb down. Well, his body reacted first before any reason could tell his body no, he jumps off the cliff and puts his body forward, heading straight down into the water. He makes impact and dives deep down into the warm water. He swims back up to resurface. He begins to tread water, looking to see where the entrance was. He was guessing it was behind the waterfall. He swam over back to the coastline and lifts himself out of the water. Well, he was having a good day today. There was a path that lead to the back of the waterfall. Interesting, he might be able to get there sooner than he believed

The path was pretty narrow, Riku had ot admit to that. The path was wide when he first started to walk towards the waterful but then he notice as he was walking towards the back of the waterfall that he began to balance himself. What in the world kind of path was this. It was definitely a shitty one to wak on if he had to balance himself like he was on the edge of a damn rooftop building. He didn't have to put his arms out cause he had the ability to balance on top of anything, abnormally shaped or not. This was not the first and it woud definitely not be the last time he would have balance on something like this.

The waterfall was roaring inside the cave that Riku was walking into. He could feel the mist press on the side of his cheek as he was walking which felt pretty warm on his face.He supposed he spoke too soon when he said that the path was pretty shitty. It was actually quite clever. He notice that the path got narrow again but there was an incline. He was walking upward. He notice that there was an edge. Beyond the edge, four feet away from the edge was the waterfall and in between that four feet distance was a little pool. There was nothing spectacular about the pool, it was just the fact that he in order to get onto the path that Riku was walking to, they would have to climb up. But it would be rather difficult as on the face of the little hill was jagged rocks that was pointed outward.

Riku kneel down to look at the jagged rocks for it didn't look quite normal to him. He looked at it very closely, close enough to get a good enough examination but not too close to touch it. He expected it as much, the rocks were coated in some type of liquid that was definitely not water. He took a whiff of it. It smelled something like almonds.

"Arsenic" Riku said to himself "They've coated the rocks with arsenic". That was very unfamilar to him. Did they take the time to actually come down from there village everyday and literally coat every single spike that came out? No, that wouldn't make any sense. That's ridiculous and down right foolish. Riku look at it closer, this time he takes his classes and magnified it so he could see the rocks with better examination. What he saw was surprising. There were little pores. Tiny size openings for letting the arsenic liquid to come out. Now that, Riku thought, was something only an old time village would think. Looking at it from his perspective, it was rather ridiculous but it made a bit of sense. How do one think of entering into a village without causing very little attention. One might assume that taking the route that is least expected would be the easiest way. But in actuality, it's the opposite. It's making the path in plain sight that some shinobi dont take into consideration. The shinobi would swim underneath the waterfall and see that there is a cliff with spikes on it. A foolish and unsuspecting shinobi would try to grab onto the rocks only to find it slippery and hard to grab. A few minutes later, that shinobi would be dead because the arsenic slipped through the pores of the skin and killed it that way.

Genius, pure genius. He would have to come back after this mission to gain more information about this finding but for now, he had to continue to the path. He turns to face the cave. It wasn't dark, even though there were no light or any torches that could light it, it was actually somewhat bright. Riku didn't put his guard down, he blinked his eyes twice to let his aura, the aura echo, decide whether it was safe or not to travel the pathway without making himself known. His eyes shun blue and to him he saw everything as one might look at a highly devolop sonar. His view was What he saw was that there were little sensors on ceiling of the cave, the side of the cave and the ground. He turn around to see if there was any sensors behind him. He didn't see them and if he missed any, well he would've saw some type of flashing light because the ones in front were in on a stationary green. He kneels to the ground and throws a rock at one of the sensors. It blinked but then it stopped and went back to its stationary green. Riku blinked and his eyes went back to it's aqua color. He assumed that this was a type of sensor that differentiate between a human, animal or any inanimate object that moved.

There was only one thing he could do and that was travel in the shadows to keep himself concealed. There wasn't a pathway for Riku to take to reach to Takigakure in the shadow realm but this cave was a straight path and he would not easily stray off the trail. He walks over to the side of the cave and his body begins to mold into the darkness and before long his body disappeared away from sight.


A few minutes past and the cave was empty and quite. Only the soft roars of from the waterfall in the distance could be heard and soon it would be quite once more. The quietness may have over taken the cave but once one got close to the open pool of water, the dim light from the water made the cave have a still life. Entering out of the darkness from the side of the cave, Riku's body molded outward like a person that was covered in gelatin just eased his way out. He was standing at the edge into the pool looking around to see if there were any sensors that were here. There wasn't. He guessed that the sensors on that long pathway would've told the shinobi in the village if there was a intruder in the pathway, why even bother putting it in the water? As ridiculous as it sound, Riku did not trust his gut instincit to say go for it again. This time, his conscious told his body not to jump into the pool of water and just swim. This time, he was gonna think this one out.

He placed his hand on the surface of the water. There his hand glew a bright blue. He had closed his eyes and his eyes began to see the pathway in which was safe for him to take, the path in which there were no sensors for him to activate. It was good that he did not need just jump in, there was a sensor just two feet away from the entrance of the pool that would've gone off if he were to just jump in. Taking his hand away from the surface, he then slipped his entire body into the pool where he slipped in softly, making a soft splash sound and swam.