//a brainworm for @akasunaa (just a lil guy! :'D) An expert might look upon the corpses scattered across the marshy bogland and speculate the sort of conflict that transpired, might infer by the detail of a uniform or lack thereof, the chunks of mangrove scattered, the bitter damp of explosives biting in the light fog, that it was an ugly affair. But truly, what did it matter? By the time the haggard figure swallowed by an inky feather overcoat arrived, the outcome was a forgone conclusion. The winners who lived to crawl away another day. The losers slowly sank into the swamp, some intact, others in pieces. Now, Tsubaki was in the poor habit of picking up the in between strays despite how poorly it aligned with the flow of his operations
Today, there was no such trouble. Every pulse checked was a pulse long gone. Far gone. Even the ones that showed no signs of significant injury lay as still in the mud as the ones blown to pieces. Poison, no doubt. Tsubaki minded anything sharp as he waded through. Corpses were mindlessly processed with practiced ease, valuables picked clean, weaponry dislodged from the depths... He was inspecting a padded vest for its integrity when a pale piece of driftwood bumped against his leg in the murky water. But a second glance revealed it to be far more. It was a hand connected to a joint and maybe something more beneath the mire. It sported no injury, no blood to speak. But it did splinter. Wood, it was carved, a puppet of sorts. Tsubaki had heard of these shinobi, the ones who utilized chakra like invisible strings to control powerful automatons in battle. "Ah... pity." Tsubaki muttered, stooping, not to collect the appendage from where it floated, but to turn it over, rough hands over the smooth wood. Delicately crafted, slivered away to the exactness the puppeteer envisioned. The joints of the fingers flexed with ease, precise. Were it not for the notches, grooves, and and clear splintered damage, Tsubaki would have had a tough time telling it apart from... well. A part of him wondered how its network flowed, if it was proprietary, how it would feel to thread a little chakra through and-- no. to cut with another's blade was one thing, but there was something violating about stringing someone else's puppet. Something like reading someone else's diary if the embodiment of a soul could be slipped on like a glove and massacred through carelessness. The irony was not lost on him, a graverobber made to feel uneasy to defile.
One thing, however, was certain. He could not leave it here. "And just how many pieces did you end up in... hnn..." Feeling through the gloom of the muddy water, Tsubaki searched to see just how far the piece extended, if there was more, or if this was just caught up in gnarled, unseen roots.
