[center][color=efddb5][h1]Kohaku[/h1][/color][/center]

[indent]Seeing no reason to object, Kohaku fell in behind her new comrades as the group began their descent into the ruins. It was immediately apparent to the Faunus that her earlier assumption was correct; they were essentially maneuvering through a tomb. Whatever unfortunate souls had decided to use this bunker as a vulture's nest were either dead or scattered to the wind, like most of Vacuo's populace in the face of such attacks. As the group swept through room after room in search of the beasts responsible, Kohaku did find at least two disconcerting things among the empty chambers. Perhaps most obvious of them, the absence of bodies. Before coming to Shade, she had the misfortune of witnessing the fallout of a Grimm attack more than once. It was never so clean and tidy, with just a few splatters of blood here or there. The assault on this particular bunker was far from fresh, sure, but the Grimm had no need to eat or drink. She had expected rotting viscera to have painted the halls, an assembly of corpses to greet them.

Secondly, and perhaps most concerning, was that the markings left behind by the deceased looked familiar to her. She had remembered being present for negotiating with men bearing the same emblems. The Dust Devils or some such. They weren't especially large, but they had been friendly with her own people, and exchanged goods on more than one occasion. She even recalled mumbling of a lost outpost during one of their rendezvous. It was unfortunate that this was its ultimate fate, but such were the hard facts of life out in the wastes. The familiarity did give her the ghoulish hope that the Grimm had been thorough in their extermination—she didn't need anybody from that side of the tracks recognizing her.

Still, she had more to focus on than the phantoms of the past. Her senses were likely sharper than those of at least half the present Huntsmen-in-Training, so it behooved her to be on watch. Plus, old habits did die hard, and she pawed her way through an occasional desk to see if she couldn't appropriate some of munitions when she could. Their previous owners surely wouldn't need them any longer, and Dust was always in short supply. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for her reputation, the group seemed to move further into the structure before she could engage in too much looting. 

The second floor was certainly more imposing than the first, and for all her experience, Kohaku had never ventured into a Grimm nest—she was a survivor, not suicidal. She depressed a trigger on her rusted staff as they continued their path, causing a soft 'thunk' as she switched the activate Dust canister on a hunch. The inhuman laughter that seemed to prove her intuition correct; no sooner than the group reached a cross roads, glowering red eyes seemed to surround them on both sides. Before the beasts could begin their horrid battle cry and launch their assault, the head of Requiem had already begun to glow orange. 

[color=efddb5]"Take left!"[/color] She shouted as waves of black and white descended upon them from two sides.

Kohaku closed her eyes thereafter in a brief moment of focus, before slamming the bottom end of her staff into the material below them. From the rickety metal pole came several streams of bright amber light, snaking across the floor and between the legs of her team members further ahead. The lines cut a suddenly right as they reached the intersection, then raced towards the charging Grimm. Just as the monsters prepared to surge into the intersection, the ground itself seemed to come to life. Several long, thick spikes of stone erupted from the concrete, catching the first two Beowolves in the torso and skewering them against the ceiling of the corridors with a sickening crunch. Their fellows behind them crashed against the Dust-molded restraints, jaws and forelimbs swiping between the tightly bundled pillars like the bars of a cage.

It probably wouldn't hold forever, but it would for the time being, and that's all she needed. Trusting that a few of her teammates would have followed her request and kept the worst of the horde on the left at bay, she pulled the trigger on her weapon again and listened as it locked a different canister into place. Deciding it best not to wait for the Grimm to smash their way through her makeshift barrier with weight of numbers, she hurried into the breach, and leveled the head of Requiem down the tunnel to the right. Another brief moment, a dazzling red glow around the projector, and then luminescence. The snarling of hounds was replaced by howls of agony and rage as flames streamed forward from her armament and through the gaps between spires, setting the darkness alight. 

[/indent]