Preparatory Path - Purging the Prejudice

Far away from the jurisdiction of the Five Great Shinobi Nations, the egregious Akashōkami rested on the stone steps that led the way into one of many ruined temples built in the name of the Wicked Heart. For millennia, these daefic monuments had circumvented the attention of the masses and managed to remain under the radar. Apparently, the vast majority believed that the Jashin movement had only recently come into being, and that it was nothing more than a mere experiment. This, however, was far from the truth.

Ikezu looked skywards, his pupil-less, blank eyes taking in the sunset. This temple he had set up camp at was one of nine on the continent. Nine that he knew of, anyways. Behind him lied the biggest of these unholy sanctuaries, though, that wasn't saying much. They were more like shrines than temples; perhaps barely thirty meters deep, and not even half as tall, if even that. The proportions of the building seemed to be a bit...strange, to say the least. But what counted was not the appearance, but what lied on the inside. Or, what had lied on the inside. It seemed that whenever whoever worshipped here had left, they had taken every last scroll, parchment, and scrap along with them. It was quite the loss to Ikezu, someone whose pursuit of knowledge rivaled that of his love of Jashin. But when it came to learning about his god, it was something he took quite seriously.

In part, his disappointment was the reason he reclined on the steps in front of the temple. He was racking his brain to see if he had any sort of leads as to who might have been responsible for removing the archives he should have found within the shrine. Assuming that it wasn't the founder, who else could have been here?

"Gah, fuck it." Akashōkami groaned, looking down at the ground before running a hand through his white on black hair. "Shit doesn't matter. If it's gone, it's gone. What can I do about it?"

The evening air blew, fluffing his hair and brushing his bare skin. Ikezu refused to wear a shirt, for whatever animalistic reason. His archaic tribal tattoos depicted what kind of malefic upbringing he must have had, and various black patterns dance across his slightly tanned skin. As he stretched and yawned, his muscles rippled, then tightened, before he relaxed and sat back, leaning on his arms and looking back up towards the sky.

"Dead end, again, huh?"

                                             - - - 

The Goddess of the Keys landed lightly on a rocky path to a prodigious temple. A pleasant breeze rustled her hooded cloak, revealing a pair of curled horns atop a head of long, white hair. She, Megumi, was the newest member of a mythical clan of Celestial Beings that in recent times have proved to be more than myth.

“This has to be it,” she muttered as she approached the gloomy temple of blackened stone. Megumi had been searching for Otsutsuki temples the late Inner, Boro, of Kara once presided over. Each was rumored to have troves of material regarding the legends of the Otsutsuki, but so far the last three she discovered had all but been destroyed.

The pale woman stepped cautiously into the place of worship then frowned.

“Odd,” She placed a hand onto the unnaturally warm stone wall. “I can’t see or sense through these walls.” They seemed to function similarly to the cubes that Isshiki Otsutsuki employed, but were fundamentally different. What she could sense, however, was a presence that was somehow familiar yet foreign to her. With utmost caution she floated down the dim, barren hall towards a small speck of light.

“Dead end, again, huh?” said a husky voice. Instinctively, a deathly sharp blade, made entirely of flesh, erupted from Megumi’s right arm. The owner of the voice stood from the steps he rested upon and slowly turned to face her. The man was shirtless and had a wild look about him - he had salt and pepper hair and a number of black markings across his tanned skin that resembled an intricate Kāma.