A Demon's Influence: Entrance to the Mountains

Previously: A Conversation and Battle: Takeshi meets Echo Uchiha

Traveling
Everyone walked towards the Plateau of the Wicked slowly. Hikaru told everyone that though he had heard of the plateau, he had never been there, nor had he seen a picture of it. When the plateau came into view, everyone stopped.

The first part of the plateau was a mountain range, but the mountains were black, black fog seeped through the range, and it looked as if a battle had taken place there. The second part seemed to be a large patch of land surrounded by the black mountains. But the most dominant feature was the peak of the largest, and furthest mountain from where they stood. On the peak was an elaborate black palace.

Hikaru looked at the plateau and said, "Okay, Echo is definitely here, that mountain range reeks of his chakra... he probably caused a battle here, and damaged the mountains in such a way that they turned black. The land surrounded by mountains is probably the home of the Shadow Temple ruins and that palace over there is probably where Echo is..."

Senna, who was holding Kouhei's hand, looked at the mounatin range and said, "What the heck? How are we going to get up there? It would take days to get there, and I'm sure if Echo is a Yonkou, he made it so that you can't teleport in."

Kouhei looked at the mountain and activated his Byakugan. He looked at the plateau from the air, and saw a path through the mountains, that led up to the palace. "See that opening right there?" he asked, pointing at the beginning of the path "that's a path straight to the palace."

"Great," said Hikaru, "anything else?"

Yeah, and it might be problematic... the path first enters the Shadow Temple ruins and then leads to the palace... and there seem to be monks there..."

Senna smirked, "Monks? What are they gonna do?"

Hikaru said, "We should be careful though, and if at all possible, we should avoid the monks, just in case."

Everyone nodded and walked towards the beginning of the path. They walked quickly through the path, not knowing what inhabited the mountains.

Followed
A monk quietly crept through the fog. The fog allowed the monk to tell if someone had entered. He wanted to check to see who the intruders were. The fog also gave him the position of the intruders.

He quietly crept along the path, which was rugged and thus had many elevations. He heard footsteps below and looked down, through the fog, he saw the outline of a group of people, he heard them talk about Echo Uchiha as he followed them. ''Echo Uchiha? What do they want from our god of evil?''

He then heard one say that he and Echo were on the same level of power, and knew that they weren't beleivers of the monks religion. Silently, he summoned a shadow beast and directed the beast to possess one of them. The beast silently crept along the path, and crept closer and closer to it's mark.