He panted for air after a brief stop. Sinny took a moment to look around him, the shadows of the forest was clinging to every tree and made them look terrifying. But what was more terrifying was the strange voices whispering at every turn. Every now and then, they hummed to his ears before leaving him in a deafening silence. It didn’t help at all that he was always restless for a different reason.Earlier that day, Sinny had skipped school– or the attempt for him to start going to the academy– and returned home. He had hoped to get freshened up by a bath and perhaps some alone time in the library where he preferred to study on his own. There were many reasons he wanted to avoid the academy, really, but one thing was apprehensive about was to hear anything about how he never looked like his parents. Perhaps he was as fair as Sanyu-niisan or Kaori-neesan, and even Maru-ojiisan, but it was never strange for their family. For others, it may be hard to overlook.
As he was walking past the corridor, he heard some voices. They belonged to his parents, and they seemed to be arguing about something. He didn’t want to eavesdrop and was about to leave for a different hallway when he suddenly stopped. His heart sank at the mention of the word - “adopted”.
At first, he didn’t believe it. He didn’t want to think of it that, so he inched a little closer, still far-off from the actual living room, but he could hear bits and pieces of the conversation. It wasn’t hard when the voices grew louder at some point, but scarily became silent at times. But he stopped when he heard it again. Something about “nothing taking well to others…” or “… obviously different…”
Now, if there was one thing that Sinny was quite known for, it was that he so often jumped into conclusions. And yet, with how he had been feeling lately about his own differences, especially with Sanyu-niisan and Kaori-neesan being too busy lately and so he couldn’t see them much, it was hard to avoid situating himself within the family. Shocked by his own inability to calmly take in the situation, he found himself considerably restless by the day, and before afternoon was over, he was running.
He didn’t want to be coward and leave without thought. He thought some cool air would do him good. But his heart was still in shambles. Why couldn’t he remember anything before? Why can’t he even remember of any memory as a child? Was he really taken in by the family? He didn’t understand and the more he tried to understand, the more he felt hollow… that by the time he looked up and around him, he found himself in the forest.
He was certain he didn’t leave the village. The guards would have caught him by now. But he was so lost in his thoughts that he had unknowingly gotten himself somewhere he didn’t know of. And nighttime was slowly creeping in, with what little rays of light showing through holes along the canopy. He wasn’t even sure if walking backwards was the answer.
To make matters worse, inhuman words began to echo around. He glanced around, ready to fight it, summoning his chakra to form water droplets, but there was nothing. He could almost feel eyes on him, fixated and boring holes at his very features, but there was nothing to see. And the voices only grew louder and louder before suddenly coming to a stop.
“That’s right… you’re empty,” one cold, almost acidic tone whispered behind him and it sent chills down his spine. Turning, he saw nothing, and the water blast he shot out simply hit and carved at the tree.
Fear rising inside, the incomprehensible voices returned, like animals trying to vie for his attention. He felt trapped, suffocated. And before he knew it, he was running again. Down through unthreaded path. Pushing past overgrown leaves and hedges, stumbling on some vines and uproots, and occasionally shouldering some of the trees that had grown denser in this forest.
Ultimately, he caught himself stopping as he couldn’t tell how far or how long he had been running. Falling onto his knees to take in some air. Sinny kept his eyes closed for a while longer as the voices moved past his ears and lost into the silence of the trees. When he opened his eyes, he was nowhere. It was no clearing. It was no path. He was lost within the maze of giant trees and encroaching shadows. Night may have come already – he didn’t know. What he did know was that the feeling of emptiness was getting heavier and no matter how much he wanted to just be back home to greet his parents, he couldn’t. Not when he didn’t even know himself to begin with.
The ancient forest is home to some of Kumogakures amazing creatures, it had a lot of haunted locations and there was obviously some mutants that were lurking around due to some hospital experimentations going horribly wrong. While Maru worked part-time as a Mercenary for the Merces Leifter's he spends most of his time hunting, killing, or containing the anomalies he found. While 15% of the time he sometimes accidentally had tried to take in people who were innocent of any wrong doings that remaining 85% was either him having to seal, banish, or trap a monster so the people of Kumogakure could live normal lives. Currently he was doing one of his patrols to make sure that there weren't anything lurking around in the forest like some mutant who was making it's way into town, teens coming out here for a thrill of finding something unknown, cultists bringing in a sacrifice for cthulhu and so on. So far he had circled around and hadn't found anything strange yet on the edge of the forest. Maru's mask-flash-light casting a bright light in his path when he saw something crouched down and Maru smirked knowing that the thing he was looking at probably wasn't human. Maru reached underneath his mask to draw his musket but upon drawing his weapon he recognized the person. It was– what's his face that was adopted into the clan.
