[center][img]https://media.giphy.com/media/3TZgJXiwbdbLG/giphy.gif[/img][/center]
[indent][indent][indent]The old road had seen better days.

Tarashima had been a place that conflict had arose time and time again, a forest that invited strife. The statues just before the Torii were a testament of that. The two were known by the natives of Tarashima Forest as [i]Gekido[/i] and [i]Kanashimi[/i], though they must have looked foreign to the Japanese outsiders given the stone engravings upon their bodies were not in Japanese nor was the style reminiscent of anything that decorated the Japanese woodlands, or not as far as they could tell. If any one of them would look at it, it would seem strange and alien, like a language they had never seen before. But in a second they would know what the engravings meant as if they understood it. Two simple phrases on each statue, recalling something that the Japanese outsiders could not know the context of.

[center][b][sub]I hate of which I am. I shall never forget.[/sub][/b][/center]
The path continued forward, though a loud boom echoed through the skies. It sounded like thunder. But there were no clouds in the skies above; in fact, there were no signs of storm for what they could make out in the skies above for miles. The forest shuttered, as a sudden gust of wind swept the leaves from the path, causing Hiroko’s coat to flutter as she buried her hands in her pockets. There would be no breeze afterward.[/indent][/indent][/indent]