The ash and sooth raining down from the blackened heavens flooded what appeared to be the entrance of the mining site a few meters from the flag whipping in the violent wind. Hayate and the others all gathered at the mouth of the cavern entrance trying desperately to shield themselves from the elements by leaning against the blackened rocks on either side. The stones were weird to say the least and upon an auxiliary glance appeared to be a very reflective glasslike material, possibly something unseen by the rest of the world. Or at least something not commonly found among the common riff raff that Hayate had the pleasure of doing business with.

After a moment the brute of a man he had been following and a hand full of others started to use the tools they brought along to clear them some kind of path. The pile of ash was nearly up to the young shinobi’s waist and steadily rising, meaning not a soul had come nor gone in some time. Hayate presumed that the others had come to the same conclusion or something close, because nobody was talking. It could have been that they were all exhausted after making the hours long hike up the Cliffside to the encampment or a sense of dread slowly seeping into the minds of his part but regardless the silence made Hayate uneasy.

“Sir…” he finally spoke up once again addressing the leader of the expedition, whom he finally learned was named Hue Stringer. “Hue, what does this mean?”

“It means that our men are down there, for better or worse, and we are here to relieve them. For all we know this build up could be a regular problem they’ve been having to clean up.” Stringer seemed confident, or at least wasn’t as uneasy as the young Shinobi.

It wasn’t long before Stringer and the others removed enough of the ash to allow Hayate and a few of the other smaller guys to weasel their way into the vast network of caves dug out of this strange jet black rock. And upon entering, though dimly lit by the sparsely scattered torches hung by the prior crew, Hayate could see and hear a lot better than dealing with the ashfall outside. Finally he removed the scarf he had been using to filter out the debris and take a deep breath of hot but clean air.

He alongside two other mercenaries looked back and forth between each other and the darkness that consumed the end of the long mine shaft they were now in. Other than the tormenting winds whipping though the mouth of the cave they couldn’t hear anything other their own hearts beating in their chest. For a moment the last Amatsukami found himself stricken with a sense of dread knowing the trek out and back to the ship would beat them up as much as their hike here did, there was no easy way out of this.

“Its dark down there, shouldn’t we be seeing someone by now?” one of the others asked as he bravely started to walk farther into the mine. Hayate followed closely behind knowing that if anything were to happen he would have to step up and take the lead to make sure the others would be safe. The shinobi did always have a strong sense of morality and wouldn’t let anyone die on his watch, not like what happened to his clan.

“Just watch out for any slick spots, I’ve nearly busted my ass twice already.”