Rabbit Princess [Gaara] [3]

☾ 16 ☽

As they continued to the centre, they reached a huge limestone cavern. When she looked up, Tsukiko saw a large shinobi character engraved onto the rocks of the roof – 'A' as in 'Aun', indicating the beginning of something. Tsukiko pursed her lips.

There was a spring filled with clear water, glowing an azure green colour for some reason, but it was so deep that when peered into, the bottom could not be seen. The spring was at the end of the cave, with no other path that continued inside.

"You don't have to worry about anything," Toneri told Tsukiko as if she was worried about the water. "Nothing about this place will hurt you if you're with me,"

Tsukiko was pulled into the water with Toneri, and she realised that the water did not wet their bodies. She glanced around the dark water, noticing some corpses of microorganisms floating around, as if there had been snowing inside the cave.

For a moment, Tsukiko considered that the flickering might have been glowing bugs.

Beyond the dim light, at the bottom of the spring, there appeared to be a wavering like the surface of water. They approached to find that it was indeed a water surface – a water surface at the bottom of a spring. This surprised Tsukiko greatly as she had never seen anything of such sort.

Then again, there were a lot of things that she had seen in her life since she hit puberty that Tsukiko could not quite describe when it came to logistics.

Next instant, Tsukiko felt herself plunge into darkness. She looked around, trying to use her Sensory abilities without invoking Chakra. It was a cylindrical space surrounded by a wall of rock, and it was pitch black, so she had no sense of up, down, left, or right.

It was hard to know where she was falling but Toneri's hold on Tsukiko's hand was constant as a light came into view from below, approaching steadily.

The light's true form was a large bubble, and Toneri took her around it. Tsukiko looked around to see that all of the puppets were following the same path.

As they landed onto the large lump of sand on the other side, Tsukiko pretended to clear the hair out of her face, dropping another Crystal to mark the path. Far ahead, she could once again see a water surface. Toneri took them her along without another word.

Every time they came out into a new place, it was a mirror – the next surface broke to reveal that they were in a limestone cave like the one where they had jumped into the spring. Countless bubbles and balls of sand of various sizes were scattered around on the ground. This might be where those spheres floating in the springs were being made.

Giant crystal pillars extending the height of the cave continued up to the hole. Tsukiko continued to find any and all chance to shed Crystals to give path to those who might follow.

Here, they continued through a strange space with heaps of hundreds of transparent pillars. Tsukiko looked worriedly at the large crab sitting in wait those who stumbled in.

Wind was blowing from up ahead, and the sound of waves met Tsukiko's ears.

It felt like a fever dream as they left the cave and Tsukiko found herself looking at a sun shining on an ocean-like waterfront. She was sure that they had not been in that cave long enough for the day to break. She turned to look at Toneri in shock.

"What is this place?" Tsukiko asked, momentarily forgetting her hate for him, also noticing the clan emblem on his back. "How is the sun shining underground?"

Not only that, but when they gazed into the distance, the surface warped with no horizon in sight. Rather than a blue sky, forests and lakes were blurrily visible overhead. It was as if the ground was upside down in the sky. She didn't want to imagine it was another dimension.