Hurrying back to where he came from, Tatsu is thankful for the beans in his paws that help suppress the sound of his steps because otherwise he wouldn't be able to keep an ear out for anything irregular as he ran as fast as he could.
The minutes felt like they stretched on for hours until the half-blood returned to the laboratory and swiftly went behind anything that could block the immediate view from the door. The room wasn't cleaned from when he left; a good sign really, as it means whoever cleaned it up in the first place hasn't returned yet. Feeling the slightest ounce safer, he took deeper into his intuition for further direction and began moving closer to whatever lies at the end of his destination while staving off the nausea.
He is being extra mindful of his steps as the blood and gore would mark his path, not to mention the shards of glass that could injure him at the slightest miss step. Tatsu resisted the urge to turn his stomach inside out at the sight and offending scent as it appears that whatever chemical cleaning agent was used didn't last very long.
It was tricky to navigate the laboratory for someone who doesn't know the layout of the room. Fortunately, the confined abominations are either dead or subdued with anesthetics making it a trivial matter for the half-blood to climb their cages like a ladder in order to have a higher viewpoint of the area.
It wasn't a long climb by any metric, but it did sure make him shiver in discomfort whenever he mistakenly stepped on flesh or when he gave himself a mini heart attack when he accidentally slipped on blood. Either times he somehow managed to avoid falling to the ground.
When he made his way to top of the stack, he just then realised that the room as far larger than he first anticipated. Looking back, he found that what he explored so far was only about a fourth of the entire room and even that was a humble estimate.
Closing his eyes, Tatsu turned completely in one direction, and then another, and the other as well. He focused inwards to feel his instincts in it's entirely, feeling which direction caused the most sensation to spike so strongly. With so much concentration condensed into a singular goal, he did not keep track of time and lost himself to that one purpose: to track whatever pinged off his instincts.
After moments have passed, the half-blood's feline orbs glowed faintly with determination. 'That way.' he thought to himself as he looked over a specific direction- one that lead to a wall.
He doesn't know what's over there or what lies in that path, what he does know is that whatever is there stands out to his instincts and that way would be his destination.
Sketching out a route in his mind and memorizing the slightly more unique fixtures for landmarks and identifiers, he gently making his way back down the cages and spurred into action.
He made his way through the tables with surgical tools and tubes filled with sedated abominations floating within. He turned a corner when he reached an odd stack of crumpled papers, some stained with blood long turned brown and some ruined with liquids of strong colour. He passed by rows and rows of shelves and cabinets filled with paper documents and suspicious-looking books of unknown content.
It would be a lie to say he was tempted to flick through them just as it was his job to find out things but he restrained himself for now. If his instincts did not find those files valuable, then it's highly likely they aren't.
Tatsu ran along a grid-like structure that was void of power, making sure he gave a wide berth to anything that Hummed too loud or too high. He paused at a weird line of statuettes made of cardboard depicting a man in various states of vitality to exhaustion- something about them was tickling a thought in his mind before he shrugged and carrying on his way.
The hardest part of his path was the pipe area. It consisted completely of pipes running alongside and around each other in a labyrinthine construction, it was as if they were placed individually in the beginning with no regard to proper efficiency and planning before more additions were placed later on until it snowballed into a monstrosity of a layout by itself. This section alone tested his patience the worst as the half-blood had to squeeze his pliable feline body to its limits through the gaps between the metal. Oftentimes did he get lost as the randomized structure was difficult to navigate and more than once did he have to remove smaller section by the screws just to advance through the stainless steel jungle, although sometimes he did have to backtrack a bit because there were pipes that were running unknown liquids and gasses through them and he definitely did not want to be melted or mutated or anything else that could have happened.
Eventually however, he did managed to find his way through the labyrinth of pipes and into the other side.
'Just a little more...' He thought as he trudged on.
Tatsu found a second wind of energy as he was close to his destination, although whatever lies there has yet to be determined he has no other options left but this one.
The half-blood circled around an dark enclosed space, the yellow warning signs on the floor were all he needed to not push further. He cautiously moved on the fringes of a plant enclosure, though he did not understand why he should, his hackles were rising whenever he inched even the slightest bit closer. He most certainly did not stumble when we crossed paths with a section devoted to preservation, with appendages and 'spare parts' encased with formaldehyde.
He ignored the eerie sights that sent shivers down his spine and pushed onwards before finally arriving at the end of his goal: A wall.
A...
Wall...
He blinked once, twice, before taking a deeper breath. He put aside his irritation and closed his eyes, he focused inwards to confirm once more that yes, his instincts are telling him the treasure lies beyond the wall before him.
Opening his eyes, he was greeted with the sight of the seamless wall. There was no lock to pick, an opening to stretch or a crack to tear wide, there was simply nothing to exploit.
'Magic.' He rationalized in quiet distress. 'If it was spiritual in nature then I could have cut it up but magic? No shot.' He took stock of his surroundings. 'What can I use around here... There has to be something...'
He walked around the area silently and began to think hard, looking for something, anything, that could help him now.
He clicked his tongue while surveying the tools around his immediate vicinity. What irked him was not the fact that he found tools for a butcher or surgeon, no. Those were perfectly fine instruments for the perceived purpose of the area. Instead it was the tools that weren't for that trade- those that are dulled or chipped, twisted or too small- tools for torture as they are.
Meaning that the specimens preserved around him came from haunted individuals who died in agony. A needless and pointless endeavour other than to inflict suffering upon the live creatures that were strapped... Somewhere...
Live creatures that were still whole... And alive... That have come from elsewhere...
He sprung into action and ran around, checking the surroundings more carefully.
Nowhere else did anything imply creatures being whole beings. Anywhere else was a gorey sight of pieces that used to being a singular being now torn apart for the barest scraps to be used individually.
If the train of thought was as logical as he think it is, of creatures being brought here and immediately dismantled for efficiency then the correct assumption is that the exit is nearby!
'The treasure is tempting sure, but nothing is as tempting as freedom!' Tatsu exclaimed joyfully I'm his mind. 'So close, so close, so close!'
He scoured the area and decided to climb higher once more. Bouncing from the floor to a table and made a ladder out of a shelf, he toured and swiveled his gaze around only fall short of his expectations.
'Nothing...' He thought annoyed before an idea reared itself. 'Maybe... Maybe it's like the treasure, the exit is behind a wall?'
Gazing at the dull, seamless expanse before him, he couldn't but frown. All of it looked the same as the previous ones, lacking anything to pick it apart from the others.
'Although, maybe it's like in one of those troupes about a fake wall only being an illusion?' He jumped back down from his vantage point and returned to the wall were the treasure was supposed to be held.
Placing a hand on the wall, he confirmed it was real.
'Figures it wouldn't be that easy.' He thought with a sigh. 'At least I can use this as a point of reference.'
Starting from that specific point, he began walking to the right while flicking his tail or bumping his shoulder with the wall, making sure that it was kept in constant physical contact.
When the surroundings shifted to another area, he quickly ran back to the treasure wall and did the same in the opposite direction. Minutes of nothing went by and the surrounding began shifting again, however, just at the supposed edge of the area, he stumbled to the right and went through a wall.
Shaking his head and standing back up, he found a staircase right in front of him. He blinked, just once, and began ascending with rapid frevor.
Exhaustion? Forgotten in the face of freedom.
Once he leaves this place, he'll leave the shrine and go back outside and return the mundane world, report what he found so far and bail on the request because there is no way he rather be here any longer than necessary. His client can hire other exorcists for all he cares, he is done.
Seeing the door at top of the stairs, he jumped on the handle to open the door.
The first thing that hit him was the scent of decaying wood and musty stale air. The second thing he noticed was a person completely covered head to toe in dark blue that they'd be completely hidden in the darkness, a ninja, so to speak.
The half-blood would have sweated profusely if he had the biology to do so, as the person swiftly pinched the right spot on his neck that made him limp like any other cat.
Tatsu has been captured once more.