>>5805639>>5805654>>5805657>>5805712There’s no easy way of dealing with this. Was this the byproduct of a ninjutsu? Hostile or not? A genjutsu? Maybe it was a kami? If so, you didn’t want to attack it out of hand.
You disrupt your chakra flow to end any genjutsus that are affecting you. You immediately sink into the water if the field and your sensing water sphere becomes inert and splashes down. Your ability to see the thing fades, but it slowly reappears before you. You dig a kunai into your thigh. Not enough to draw blood, but enough for it to really hurt. The thing just continues hovering there impassively.
… Okay.
“Masami!? Can you come over here and help me investigate something!?” You shout. Naoki and Hotaru should probably remain glued to Kenji after all.
Within a couple moments Masami is running up next to you, shooting you a quizzical look.
You gesture to the ephemeral thing. “What’s your take on this?”
She looks at it. “Rice? Looks like a bunch of rice to me? Did you see something out there?”
“There’s a floating ghost creature staring at me, plain as day. Can you see it?”
Masami stares harder. You notice a hand go to her shuriken pouch. Taking one out, she quickly jabs you in the thigh with the pointy end of one of them, definitely hard enough to draw blood.
“OW!-” You exclaim, leaping off to the side without taking your eyes off of the creature/ghost/thing. “I already tried that!”
“Is it still there?”
“Yes! It’s just hovering there, staring at me! I don’t know if it’s a symptom of something hostile, or if it’s some kind of spirit!”
“Do you think you’re being affected by something deeper than a genjutsu? I can’t see what you’re talking about, Otomo. I know you wouldn’t lie about something like this, so I definitely believe you, but… I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell you. Maybe touch it, or blast it with a jutsu? See what happens? Or we just ignore it and keep our guard up. If it’s dangerous, touching it might be some kind of trigger.”
The hovering creature is still calmly levitating, its ethereal tendrils waving searchingly through the air and water of the field.
Well… Touching it might reveal something. It certainly didn’t look like it intended to harm you. If it were some kind of hostile jutsu it probably would have tried to grab you with its tendrils by now.
You reach out a hand, slowly. It doesn’t react. You get your hand closer to one of its tendrils and lightly brush a finger against it. You don’t contact anything solid, your finger passing right through it as if it’s not there. What you do make contact with is a powerful burning sensation on your finger, an intense ache as if you were touching something far too cold for far too long. You also feel your chakra reserves noticeably plunge.
