Happenstance (Open)

[Tsuirakuya Shashu]

While walking through the village on a minor errand, you make a spur of the moment decision to take a shortcut through an alleyway that looks like it could take you where you need to go. While at first the alley seems rather average, with bits of refuse and upturned paving stones strewn intermittedly along your path, you eventually come to a break in the clustered buildings that takes you by surprise. To your left stands a luscious garden, clearly well-tended by the looks of it, that would seem more at home as part of some noble's estate, not tucked away in an alley. In fact, now that you think of it, this alley has gone on remarkably long, and when you look back the way you came you no longer see the entrance, nor the exit when you turn around.

Before you can try to do something about your predicament, however, the garden catches your eye once more, only this time your attention is drawn to a pavilion at the center that you had somehow neglected to see before. Just as the rest of the garden, it seems well-wrought and maintained, yet instead of flooring all the space under the pavilion is taken up by a rather ragged looking hole that leads down into the earth. You can't see where it goes, yet somehow you find yourself strangely drawn to it.

The gate to the garden lies invitingly open before you, while the alley seems to stretch an untold distance to either side. Clearly, you have a decision to make.

 

[Ginyama Senshiro]

Otome slammed the bottom of her pack of Reaper cigarettes against the butt of her palm before taking the last one out and discarding the empty box into a trash bin full to the brim with refuse.

"Damn," she thought as she brought her only Reaper to her lips and lit the tip with a metallic lighter. The kunoichi took an extended drag before exhaling a thick cloud of smoke up into the air. Her gaze wandered from store to store, recollecting mental notes pertaining to each one.

"Let's see, I'm banned from seven of these because of either their or my affiliation with the Kumogakure underworld. One I demolished trying to escape a crazed cultist. And two more I'm allowed in, but it'll be the last the thing I ever do. Well, shit, that leaves me with nothing nearby, and everything else will close in about half an hour."

Her eyes meandered towards the abnormally long alleyway and lingered there.

"Eh, worth a shot, I guess," she mused as she began strolling through the shaded path, taking care not to stumble over any of the upturned stones or the mess of refuse in her heels. However, as the sky overhead darkened and the alley seemed to stretch further indefinitely before and behind her, Otome began to regret her decision.

"Shit! Is this another one of Sadako's pathetic attempts to kill me?" she worried, knowing well that the Shepherd was about as well versed in Genjutsu as the Butcher was in Taijutsu. The sight of the serene garden did little to alleviate her fears; instead, it only furthered her suspicions that she was going further down the rabbit hole into what she suspected was Sadako's trap.

"I'm in too deep now," she thought as she approached the pavilion and stared down into the opening beneath it before jumping down. "Might as well see this through."

[MFT: 315]