Grasping at the Sky

Chapter 14: Preparations

"I think you found your ace in the hole Kira. Well, besides your Shadow Shift anyway," Kankuro commented as he eyed the two pair of eyes – one set gold and one green - that were imbedded into the stone figures. "It's a little funny really... the form they took." He smirked as Kira gave him a small scowl.

Ryouko and Rue stood in front of him, both carved from the stone and dirt beneath their feet to form the very creature that her ANBU mask represented. Though they were a tad on the large side for sand coyotes, the moss spotted across their bodies matched the markings of the desert canine too closely to be anything else.

It was funny, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

"Yeah, well, apparently that's the form they'll always take from now on," she muttered slightly begrudgingly, her hand straying to the mask on her hip. Something she had been wearing during their travels but would continue to stay where it was once arriving at the gathering sight in the Hidden Cloud.

"The only changes will be the elements that make up our bodies," Ryouko spoke, her jaw opening to show razor sharp flint for teeth. Their eyes were nothing but holes, the light of their spirit color shinning out of them like a lantern. "The jutsu may be called stone familiars, but we can be made up of anything from the earth, even wood or plant life."

Kankuro nodded his head, rather unaffected by their eerie presence and design. Kira could only guess they'd both seen enough that nothing really came as a surprise anymore. "I wonder, could you slip from your bodies and keep them intact? Then make another one?"

Both spirits tilted their heads in a rather dog like manner that could have made Kira laugh if she hadn't been as interested as they were by her friend's words. "For what reason?"

"Well," the puppet master scratched his head. "A lot of earth styles are for holding people, trapping them, because stone and earth and wood are strong. A lot of predator type summon animals will be used for subduing their pray, tackling them to the ground, latching onto a body part with teeth. If they could do that and then leave the bodies..."

Kira felt the reasoning click as he spoke. "It would be like a holding cell."

"Yes, much like my Black Ant is, just not very portable."

Both spirits looked to each other and then to Kira and back again, silently communicating. "We have never tried it," Ryouko spoke, her sister bobbing her head, a mostly moss and dirt tail wagging.

"Don't see why it wouldn't work," the younger spirit chimed in and might have been grinning if such a thing were possible in such a form. Kira could see the possibility, all the ideas that her friend had given her to work with.

"We don't really have time to test it now, we should get back," she muttered, looking up at the dark sky, the moon a half circle among glittering stars.

They were in a rocky canyon like area, a good day of travel still ahead of them. Gaara was waiting for them back at camp and they had left him a little under an hour ago to fetch wood for the fire. Said wood was piled at her feet now, and Kankuro let out a grumbling agreement.