A strange new life. [Naruto]

[okashihime]

I had this moment of indecision about what to tackle first: in practical terms, I had to help Tsunade, even if the slug princess might not need it, but I also wanted to keep the people from being taken. The indecision lasted just long enough until I heard Karin's yell.

"Nerugui!"

I looked back. The ferret had escaped Karin's arms and was running toward the fight. What the heck, wasn't it supposed to be a shy pet? Why the hell was it running toward trouble? But this wasn't the time to worry about that. In the moments I stood there trying to decide what to do, Tsunade splattered another golem, and another person was taken.

I had a hunch, maybe from experience, that if we drove away the two leading this attack, we could push the golems back. With one last look at my team, I signed my plans, then dashed forward. Not toward the slug princess – Tsunade could look after herself, more so because the golems didn't bleed – my target was the werewolf woman.

From what I could see of the fight, Tsunade would be fine if I managed to distract one of the two. The werewolf looked more dangerous than the guy with the sword and the werewolf lady. She attacked indiscriminately, while the guy seemed more controlled in his attacks.

Which was fine for me. I flickered forward, threw an explosive among the golems. No civilians were there, and since the golems were not people, there was no need to worry about collateral damage.

The explosion shook the battlefield, pausing the battle for a moment. Like I had intended, all eyes were on me.

"Hey, mangy mutt, I'm gonna kick your ass," I did my best Naruto impersonation. If the sunshine brat could spout nonsense and still come up on top, I could too, right?

My taunt worked, maybe better than I hoped.

The woman howled, the sound buzzing through my bones, then she charged me. "I'll show you who's the mutt."

She was fast. Faster than the bat woman, but for all that, her attacks were wild and more power than form. Which made it easier for me to counter. It was something I had trained against for years while in the academy. How to redirect the enemy's force against them. She made it easier because her attacks were simple. It was strange, but maybe because I was faster and more experienced now, I could see things in my taijutsu that I could improve.

Not to say it wasn't dangerous. The more I dodged, deflected, and hit back, the angrier she became, and wilder her swings. Like the other woman we fought, this one didn't stay down. Stabbing her with a kunai, breaking an arm, plummeting her head did barely more than slow her for a few moments, serving only to make her angrier and consequently, more dangerous.

At some point, we had stopped a few paces from each other. My breathing was somewhat ragged, but I wasn't that tired. The woman pulled her arm back into place, the same arm that I had shattered the bone. Blood spilling from her maw, there were a few kunai stuck to her, blood slowly seeping from the injuries, but for all the animalistic facial features, she looked like she was grinning, an angry, deranged grin.

"I will enjoy breaking you," the woman said.

Behind us, back at the caravan, the battle still raged on. I felt, more than I saw, a lot of explosives going off. It was nice to know my team wasn't pulling their punches either. That and Tsunade's absurd punches, creating craters whenever she hit something.

I didn't want to be hit with that. No, thank you.

"Fugai," a voice cut the stand off. "We have what we need, we're leaving."

"Fuck off, Temujin." Fugai snarled, never taking her eyes off me.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the blond guy carrying an unconscious old man. "Haido-sama won't be happy."

"Fuck off," she growled again.

Temujin just shrugged, then turned to leave.

Why were they taking the old man? Was this whole attack because of him? Somehow, I knew I couldn't let them. If that was their objective, I had to do something.

I prepared to flicker forward, but maybe Fugai was learning from me as much as I was learning from her. Before I could flicker, the woman howled.

It wasn't like the first time. The noise hit me like a sledgehammer. Not enough to stop me from activating the jutsu, but enough that I arrived in a crumpled mess. I couldn't stay standing. My stomach rebelled, and the small lunch I had eaten met the open air.

For a moment, I thought a genjutsu had hit me, but soon I felt liquid flowing from my ears and noticed the constant ringing. A sound attack? I didn't have time to contemplate what was happening. Fugai was on me again, but she had changed. She was now more wolf than woman, with wicked, sharp claws and even bigger fangs. Her armor had disappeared, and she was taller and faster.

She swung at me. I tried to dodge, but my balance was shot. Claws tore gashes on the arms that I barely managed to raise to defend myself.

Fugai didn't let me; she dashed closer, kicked me. I doubled over with the force of the attack, flying until I hit something hard. I felt something give and break. I hadn't regained my bearings when the woman was on me again. Clawed fingers grabbed me by the neck.

Her monstrous mouth moved, but I couldn't hear the words. Her other hand pulled back, and even still dazed and nauseated, I could predict the movement. The claws would rip my guts. I guess I really pissed off Fugai if she wanted to leave me with a gut wound.

Weren't those supposed to be the most painful type of injuries to die from?

Like it was slow motion, I saw the attack coming. But I wasn't defenceless, was I? I could teleport away, but I had another idea.

With Fugai keeping me in place, I didn't need to rely on my disabled senses to find her. Threads exploded from me, wrapping around the monstrous woman. At the same time, a few pushed through her, and I activated Ino's family jutsu. The one used to paralyse others.

The claws were a few centimeters away from my stomach when it stopped. Immediately, I knew I wouldn't be able to keep this forever. The woman was strong, and I hadn't mastered the jutsu, nor was I used to immobilizing people with my threads.

But with all that, I noticed something else. With my threads touching her, I could feel the strange chakra. Most of it was concentrated near her throat. It was there, but it wasn't at the same time.

Before she broke free and gutted me, I gambled. My threads dug inside her throat and pulled the source out. It wasn't difficult. It took just a small amount of effort to dislodge and remove the thing. There was no resistance when it left the woman's body. It was an oval crystalline stone, maybe the size of an egg. Now out in the open, the strange chakra signature was unmistakable.

The effects were immediate. The woman morphed back to a human-looking appearance, still wearing her armor. And all the injuries I had inflicted while she was a wolf were still there.

Fugai's fist collided with my stomach, but it didn't have any force behind it. Her hand let go of my neck, and toppled on top of me, blood splashing on me from her many injuries. Her eyes were vacant, and the last look on her face was a mix of surprise and despair.

I pushed the still bleeding corpse away, tried to stand, but my balance was still not back to normal. I fell back on my behind, unable to walk. I looked back toward the caravan.

It was hard to see when it still felt like the world was spinning around me, but the battle was dying down, with most of the golems defeated or fleeing. I checked on Karin, Ino, and Tenten through my chakra sense. Their reserves had depleted a lot, but they were closer together. Hopefully not hurt.

I looked back at the stone in my hand. Oval-shaped and bluish-green in colour with the appearance of somewhat white bluish tentacles inside it.

Movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention. I looked away from the stone to see the ferret running in the same direction Temujin had fled to.

What the heck.

 

[okashihime]

It didn't take long until Ino found me still sitting near the dead woman. My hands were over my ears, trying to heal ruptured eardrums with mystic palm. It wasn't a pleasant thing to do.

I couldn't stop thinking about the battle in the minutes I was alone. Fugai wasn't strong, certainly not jonin-level. It wouldn't have been hard if it weren't for their ability to heal themselves and me getting caught by the sonic attack. But it also boiled down to the old question I've struggled with for a while. How much force was too much force?

Realistically speaking, I knew I could have killed her before she managed to injure me, and I knew all the Academy training was designed to turn us into killing machines. I shouldn't hesitate to destroy the enemy once a battle starts. What disturbs me more than the killing… was how little it disturbs me.

I looked at the woman's dead body, and the only thing I could think of was how more efficiently I could have killed her: better strategies, better ways to use my tools, better ways to end the fight decisively. I didn't want to be that kind of person, even if it contradicts being a good shinobi.

My ears popped, and pain spiked through my head, the injuries partially healed but not fully gone yet.

I could have trapped the woman in a weight barrier, or just a normal trap barrier. As strong as she was, I don't think she could break through a force construct or escape the increased weight. This also reminded me that I had the unnamed shield jutsu I had created and seldom used.

So many failures on my part.

Ino's chakra approached me, and I turned toward her.

Her face is somewhat panicky, eyes wide. She looked a bit worse for wear, but no serious injury I could see. She had a gash on her cheek, blood flowing from a cut on her forehead.

Her mouth moved, I knew she was talking, but all I heard was the high-pitched ringing.

I didn't need much to understand her concern, not when she threw herself at me in a hug. I could barely hear the babbling words pouring out of her mouth.




—————————




It took me a bit more to heal my ears enough to walk without tripping over my feet. Ino stayed with me the entire time, then helped me to my feet and back toward the caravan.

The result of the attack wasn't pretty. Most of the pack animals were dead, some of the vehicles were destroyed. By the number of vacant stares and crying children, many of the people had been taken, too.

I found Karin, Tenten, under Tsunade supervision, healing the few injured left behind. Most of the injuries seemed incidental, scrapes and bruises from proximity to battle rather than direct strikes. For all the enemy ferocity when dealing with the pack animals, there weren't a lot of people killed. I'm guessing they were more interested in taking people alive for the matrix.

What followed next was gloomy work. We didn't talk, aside from trying to calm down the people we were helping. At some point, I took out sweets and distributed them to the still crying children. It helped distract them while we finished healing whoever we could.

When we were done with serious injuries and things calmed down somewhat, Tsunade waved us to follow, walking until we stood away from the caravan.

I didn't know what to do, so I just followed.

This wasn't how I imagined my encounter with the slug princess. I expected to find her in some gambling den, maybe drunk in a bar.

Wordlessly, she healed us. Throughout the affair, I noticed she didn't glance at Ino's bloodied cheeks or my still bleeding ears. Knowing Tsunade's aversion to blood, I did my best to help the team clean out all the visible blood. It was the least I could do to make her more comfortable.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Tsunade demanded as soon as there was no more blood in sight. "I told Jiraiya not to look for me." Tsunade's voice was harsh, but she didn't look angry, just tired.

It was still funny how Tsunade immediately assumed we were after her. She wasn't wrong, but girl, that ego.

I exchanged looks with the team. Karin and Ino looked a bit nervous. I guessed it was a normal reaction after seeing Tsunade fight. Tenten was clearly fangirling, trying not to vibrate out of her boots. Oh, right, Tsunade used to be her idol, before she recalibrated her goals.

The woman in front of us was unmistakable. The diamond-shaped seal on her forehead, the big bust, the blond hair, the ridiculous amount of chakra, the mastery over medical jutsu. It could be no one other than Tsunade, but she hadn't introduced herself yet.

"I'm Hinata," I said, then pointed to my team. "Yamanaka Ino, Tenten, Uzumaki Karin." Tsunade's eyes stopped on Karin for a moment before returning to me. "Are you Tsunade?"

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "I'm Tsunade. What the hell are you doing here?"

I don't think right now was the best time to ask for her help. Better talk about the mission first.

"We're on a mission to find and deliver a pet," I started.

"Nerugui!" Karin gasped, looking inside her backpack and searching for the ferret.

"Don't bother," I told Karin. "I saw the critter following the guy in armor. Nerugui isn't here anymore."

I guess that told how out of it Karin was that she had stopped paying attention to the ferret. She'd been glued to the thing.

"And?" Tsunade prompted.

"We found the critter, and when we arrived at the town where the owner was supposed to be, these people attacked us," I said, gesturing toward where the enemy had fled. "Like here, they kidnapped the civilians."

A glance around told me our discussion wasn't all that private anymore. A girl, dressed in the same style as the other in the caravan, had moved closer. She wore a purple short-sleeved dress-type shirt with pink stripes on it. Black hair, big brown eyes. She wasn't close enough to talk, but close enough that it was clear she wanted to speak. She looked nervous too, if the wringing of her hands and constant looking around was any indication.

"We followed the trail," I kept to my semi-report to Tsunade, pretending I hadn't seen the girl. "We found a mobile metal fortress and learned they're using people to power the vehicle somehow."

Tsunade's face turned into a scowl for the first time in the conversation.

"We were on our way to Wind's border, trying to find a Suna squad and report, hoping the intel would reach Gaara."

"Gaara?" Tsunade asked.

Ah, right, she might not be fully aware of the political situation.

I shrugged. "Orochimaru killed their Kazekage and manipulated Suna into attacking Konoha. Gaara is the one-tailed jinchuriki. Kazekage in all but name."

Tsunade blinks. "Wasn't the jinchuriki a psychopath?"

I shrugged again, a wry grin on my face. "He met Naruto."

"That loud-mouth brat?"

"Naruto has a certain effect on people." That's all I said about that.

Tsunade seemed about to ask something else when the girl finally mustered the courage to speak to us.

"Um, excuse me," she said, still wringing her hands. "Are you Konoha's ninja?"

The five of us turned toward the girl, and she shrank into herself before straightening again. I nodded.

She pulls a small leather pouch from her tunic, the unmistakable clink of coins spills into the silence.

"I-I'd like to hire you to rescue my grandpa, it's a matter of life or death."

 

[okashihime]

Life and death? By her posture, tone of voice and full body shaking, she wasn't talking about her grandpa's life. Her eyes were haunted and despairing, like the fate of the entire world hanged on the line. It immediately set me on edge. Was this going to be like one of those batshit Naruto movies, like the one where the Byakugan evolved and some lunatic on the moon tried to blow up the planet? There was no Naruto here right now to talk-no-jutsu out of disaster.

"How?" Tsunade's voice cut off my inner spiral. My head snapped back. Tsunade had a don't fuck with me face.

"G-grandpa Kahiko he—" The girl stopped, wringing her hands again. "He knows where the mine is, and these people kept asking him where it was."

Kahiko? That name was familiar. The same as the one who requested the mission, but also, mine? What was she talking about? I glanced at Tsunade, who didn't seem like she was going to ask questions.

"What mine are you talking about?"

More hand-wringing followed my question. She looked already halfway to vanishing into the grassy floor. I decided it was time to change tactics.

"What is your name?"

"I'm Emina."

I rummaged through my pouch and took out another of my lesser good impression kits. These contained far fewer pastries than usual, but I was poor. Out popped a few cupcakes. I offered them to Emina.

She hesitated, then took one.

"I'm Hinata," I said. "That's Ino, Karin, and Tenten. The mean, pretty one is Tsunade."

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "Don't be a brat."

"I-I know her," Emina said, then took a tentative nibble. She shuddered, eyes closed, and a gasp escaped her mouth.

Girls and sweets! Success!

"Nerugui means anything to you?"

Emina was stuffing more of the cupcake in her mouth and seemed to forget we were there. She stopped and turned her wide eyes toward me.

"Finish eating," I coaxed gently.

She nodded, gobbled down the cupcake, but didn't manage to hide a stray tear from her eyes. Damn, that wasn't what I wanted.

"Yes," she said after a while. She seemed calmer. "He's our caravan pet, a ferret. He disappeared a while back."

I looked at my team, got confirmation nods from them. I handed her the bag of coins back. "You don't have to pay us," I said, noting the approving nods from Karin and Tenten, and Tsunade's impassive gaze. "Kahiko hired us to find Nerugui, and last time I saw him, Nerugui was running toward where Kahiko was taken to."

"R-really?" Emina asked, a bag of coins in one hand, a half-eaten cupcake in another, crumbles of sweets on her face.

"But tell me about this mine? Any information you can provide helps."

"I don't know much," Emina said. "I thought the stories were just that, stories."

While Emina was distracted, I rummaged through my seals, passing around the stored chairs. With practiced movements, chairs appeared, then a small table. Emina was so out of it that she didn't even notice when I sat her down and placed a cup with water in her now-empty hand, the cupcake already devoured.

Tsunade's gaze had a hint of incredulity. Yes! I managed to surprise the slug princess! I wanted to cheer, but knew it wasn't the time.

"He told us about our ancestors and the wars they fought and their destruction." She sipped the water, then blinked, looking at the cup like she couldn't understand how it had gotten in her hand.

She shook her head.

"He always speaks about a magic stone hidden inside a mine." She sipped more water. "I thought it was just that, a story, until these people came and demanded to know where the mine was. Grandpa didn't tell them, so they took him."

"And what does this stone do?" I asked, acutely aware of the one stone I had ripped out of the werewolf woman's throat, now stuffed inside my pouch.

Emina shrugged. "I dunno. But all the stories end in tragedy. The stone is cursed. If these people find the mine, something bad will happen."

Aside from Tsunade, the rest of the squad seemed to take the story seriously. Somehow, the sannin had a not-so-well-hidden exasperated look on her face.

I placed a few more sweets in front of Emina. "Can you wait a little while? I need to talk with my team."

Emina looked lost, then nodded.

I placed more sweets in front of her. "We'll be right back."

Then I moved away from the table and waved to my team to follow me. Tsunade also followed, even if I hadn't included her. That was fine; if the woman wanted to help, I wasn't about to refuse the help of one of the sannins.

It came to mind then that Tsunade wasn't as rough as I thought she would be. Aside from the grit from battle, she looked healthy: no dark bags under her eyes, no sunken cheeks, or sloped posture.

She was also the first one to speak once we were far enough. "You actually buy that story? I thought they stopped training shinobi to believe in fairy tales."

I didn't answer. Instead, I dug into my pouch and showed them the stone.

"What is that?" Tsunade asked, extending her hand toward the stone, then she recoiled like something had stung her.

"I took this one from the wolf woman," I said, still holding the thing. "I think this is why they can heal from almost any wound, and where their ninja-like attacks come from." My gaze dropped to the stone in my hands. "She died after I removed it."

---

It took longer to explain the details about these attackers to Tsunade. Some of that stuff she already knew. These people weren't ninjas. They didn't behave like shinobis and had a different attack methodology, relying primarily on their supernatural durability to overwhelm enemies.

I knew they didn't matter much in the grand scheme of things. These attackers were strong against regular people, maybe genin or weaker chunin. Once you learned about their regeneration, brute force was all that was needed to take them out.

As Tsunade proved, any jonin, or god forbid, S-rank shinobi could wipe the field with them. She was the one who killed most of the golems, splattering them into goo with those scary punches.

But what if this mine fell into the hands of a hidden village? I didn't even want to think about the consequences. We were fortunate, in some ways, that these people weren't warriors. Just opportunists that chanced into power and now wanted to find the source of that power.

"Do you have any way to track these people?" Tsunade asked.

I considered her question. If we had time, we could track their trails, or maybe even backtrack to where the fortress had been and follow its path. I don't think time was on our side.

"Your slugs can't do it?" I asked.

Tsunade looked at me like I was crazy. "They're slugs, not dogs."

Right, silly of me to think ninja slugs could do anything other than heal people and fight giant snakes.

I turned to the team. "Do you guys have any idea?"

Tenten shrugged. "Neji was our team's tracker."

Karin just shook her head. "I can't sense them anymore."

Ino also wasn't of any help. "My team always got support from the village when we needed help tracking."

That didn't leave me much choice, even if it gave me ideas.

I bit my thumb until blood seeped out, then placed my hand on the ground. Unlike Naruto, I didn't call out the jutsu name. I didn't know why he always did it. The summoning circle burned cold under my palm, lines of black chakra crawling out like cracks in glass. In a puff of smoke, Kumoko glared at me.

"Snake girl," she growled. Her tail lashed, but it was more of an excited lash than frustrated. Then she sniffed the air, growled louder, and tail lashed, agitated. "You reek even more of a snake," she accused.

Was it because of the sword? I had forgotten about the thing, not wanting to remember I had a snake lodged somewhere inside my body. A shudder ran through me.

"Don't you mind that," I said. I rummaged through the seals and took one of the honey-themed cupcakes. "Here, a gift." I offered.

She gobbled the pastries in two swift bites. Kumoko glared at Ino and Tenten, gave a reluctant nod to Karin, and pretended Tsunade wasn't there. Once she had finished eating, she looked around again, observing everything around.

"Where are we, and what do you want?"

"You always go about how I smell," I said, and Kumoko nodded, the little devil. "Can you track by scent?"

Her tail lashed, offended. "Of course I can."

I turned to Karin. "Can you lend me your bag, just a little?"

Karin walked closer and pushed the bag into my hands. I placed it in front of Kumoko.

The she-devil walked closer. She was small enough to enter the bag, which she did. Not long after, she walked out. "Stinks like a skunk."

"Not a skunk," I chided, "A ferret."

"You want me to track it," Kumoko said. It wasn't a question.

"Can you do it?" I asked nonetheless.

Kumoko raised her nose, sniffed the air. "This way," she said, bounding toward where I'd last seen the ferret.

"Kumoko, wait!" I shouted out after the she-devil. She didn't listen.

For all my bluster, I wasn't keen on dealing with this. I was no Naruto, able to overcome insurmountable odds through the power of bullshit. A glance told me that at least Tsunade was following us.

Well. At least there was that.

 

[okashihime]

Stopping Kumoko from rushing ahead took some effort. Even if we were in a time crunch, we couldn't just pack up and go. We updated Emina on our plans. I collected my table and chairs. Back at the caravan, I left a few more sweets for the kids. We checked for injuries, and only then did we set out to hunt.

With Kumoko sniffing for a trail, we couldn't rush ahead. That might cause her to lose the ferret's scent. The trail she found was a meandering thing. It went generally toward Wind, away from River: messy, erratic, like you'd expect from a ferret. Then there was Kumoko's speed.

I knew from the previous time I summoned her that Kumoko had training as a ninja, but she wasn't fast. Her max speed was barely more than a normal person running, and she couldn't keep that speed for long.

Yes, I knew why now that was the case, but it didn't help much when we were in a hurry.

Offering to carry her almost ended in disaster. The only reason she didn't leave, I think, was because she was under orders to obey me. She was offended, however. So much that I was sure if I pushed the issue, all the progress I had made in the past months would go down the drain.

In the end, saner minds prevailed, or more experienced minds.

"Rushing ahead will only cause problems," Tsunade said after a few moments of intense staring between me and Kumoko. "If the destination is that fortress you mentioned, better we pace ourselves and avoid getting tired."

I understood her very well. I don't even know why I was so anxious about this. Was it because I know how bombastic Naruto's movies could be?

The meandering path continued to lead ever closer to Wind. We pushed forward until the sky darkened, then finally stopped to rest. We slept in shifts. No nightly shenanigans with Ino. Not even a peck. Tragic, really.

Night turned to day, and we started running again.

Bit by bit, the grassy areas and trees gave way to dried earth and cracked soil. It wasn't the desert proper, just the beginning of a barren, broken land. The situation only got worse the more we advanced.

There was something very wrong here, even if I couldn't place my finger on what.

"The chakra," Karin said after we had stopped to rest. "There's no chakra anywhere."

"What do you mean?" Tenten asked.

Karin waved her hands around. "It's like this whole place is dead, no chakra. It's suffocating."

I finished cooking and served the meal.

Tsunade and the others were already seated at the table, waiting. "Take out the map," she ordered, then took a mouthful of food.

I did as requested. Immediately, I saw what she probably already knew. We shouldn't be that far from Wind's border based on our direction, but the area we were in was considered a death zone. Nothing lived here. No animals, not even vegetation. The notes on the map, with small tidbits of information added, provided a few contextual details. Some locals considered the place cursed and avoided it as much as possible.

"A death zone?"

Tenten froze, food halfway into her mouth. "What? Is it dangerous?"

I shook my head. "Not that kind of death zone, just barren land. Nothing lives there, no animals, plants, or anything."

Karin turned to Kumoko. "And that's where the trail leads."

Kumoko kept slurping her meal. Her tail's lashes were halfway between excited and annoyed. Only after the silence grew too uncomfortable even for her, that the she-devil answered. "The skunk went this way."

"Ferret," I corrected, but an annoyed tail lash was my only response.

"You think it has anything to do with this mine?" Ino asked. She had opted out of the broth, gobbling down from her private supplies of cupcakes.

"It would make sense," Tsunade said before I could. "It would also explain why no one else ever found it, if everyone avoids this place."

I couldn't deny the logic made a twisted sort of sense. We weren't even fully into the death zone, and I wanted to leave it already. It was hard to explain, but it was like having sand rubbing against my skin, or that my lips were splitting because I hadn't drunk water in a while. Nothing I could point a finger at exactly, just a general uncomfortable feeling.

It was near the end of the day when something changed.

"Chakra," Karin said, stopping abruptly.

We grouped around her, waiting for the information.

"Why have we stopped?" Kumoko asked, looking from me to the direction we were following.

"Did you find anything?" Tsunade pressed.

Karin didn't seem to be paying attention to us. Her eyes were wide, scanning the same direction we were going. I walked to her, placed my hands on her cheeks, and turned her face until she looked at me.

"What did you sense?"

Karin opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again. "Chakra, a lot of it."

"Explain, please?" I asked, but I still didn't release Karin's face. She kept trying to look back toward whatever she was sensing.

In the background, I heard Tsunade asking questions, maybe to Tenten. "What is happening?"

Then Tenten's answer, explaining Karin's ability. I paid no mind to that. My attention was on Karin.

"Like Nerugui and your stone, only…" she shuddered. "It's so much more."

The mine, then. "Anything else?" I pressed.

"Lots of shinobi as well."

"Those people with the stone?" I coaxed, turning Karin's face until she was facing me again.

"No, I can only feel four like those, but about a dozen other shinobi, and there's another one," Karin looked behind me, at Tsunade. "He's like Naruto."

I nodded. Most likely she was sensing Gaara of the Desert. What was he doing here? I asked a few more questions, trying to understand everything I could. Then, before I could explain to the team, I had to hold Karin, because she kept moving toward the chakra, almost like she was in a trance.

"We found the enemy," I said, arms wrapped around Karin.

"What's wrong with her?" Tsunade asked, walking closer and placing a hand on Karin's forehead. The redhead didn't even seem to notice it.

"The mine, she found it."

"Then let's move." Tsunade turned without hesitation.

The others followed, but Karin lagged behind, drifting forward like a sleepwalker.

"Wait!" I called, rushing back to her side. "Karin, are you alright?"

She didn't answer. Just kept walking.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. Moments later, the team circled back.

"What's happening?" Tsunade demanded.

"This chakra always hits her harder than us. I think it's overwhelming her."

"What do we do?" Ino asked, walking closer and checking on Karin.

"Maybe she should stay behind?" I offered.

Tsunade arched an eyebrow. "Alone?"

Yeesh, Grandma. You don't have to test me like that.

"No," I turned to Ino, but she cut me off.

"I'm not staying behind." There was no room for negotiation in her voice.

Tenten stepped forward and took Karin from me. "I'll stay with her."

It felt wrong to leave Karin, but she was in no shape to fight, and we were in a time crunch. We said our goodbyes, then moved.

Now that we had a clear direction to follow, I scooped Kumoko up and settled her on my shoulders. She grumbled, but didn't resist. Progress.

As before, we heard it before we saw it: the grinding of machinery, the roar of chakra-based techniques.

A jagged valley opened before us, scarred and hollow. Embedded in the far rock wall was something that once looked like a palace entrance, now fractured, blasted open. The mobile fortress had crashed against the stone. From the top, what looked like a giant drill broke the stone, giving access to the interior.

Outside, a legion of golems clashed with Suna shinobi. Explosions, sand lances, lightning strikes, and cyclones tore through the battlefield, yet the golems didn't fall, and more and more golem poured out of the fortress.

Off to the side, a wave of sand rose and crashed into a massive, armored figure crackling with lightning. She retaliated with thunderbolts from both hands. Above, the screech of the batwoman.

 

[okashihime]

There were a lot of things I wanted to know about this situation, but like always, life didn't wait for me. In the brief moments I stood there looking at the chaotic battlefield, the sand wave swept part of the golem army, then hit the fortress, denting metal and creating even more destruction.

"Dammit," Tsunade said, then bolted toward the battle.

"There are people inside, keep them from destroying the thing!" I called out. I wasn't sure if she heard me, but I'd leave the sannin to her business.

And before I could regain my bearings, Kumoko moved. "This way, snake girl."

"Kumoko, wait!"

She didn't.

It was still a mystery to me how Suna had gotten here before we did, but maybe it shouldn't have been. Shisui told me about the attacks on Wind territory before I accepted the mission. It made sense that there'd be a response from Hidden Sand.

As aggressive as she was, thankfully, Kumoko didn't wade through the battle. Her path skirted around and toward the palace in the rock. I created a beacon and handed it to Ino. Then, the reality of things hit me like a wet towel wielded by a cruel hand.

I left Karin and Tenten without a beacon and now had no way to spy—keep them safe.

One mistake after another.

Our passage wasn't uncontested. Golems spilling out of the fortress were caught between a wave of attacks and tossed out, landing in our path. Instead of returning to the battlefield like good, mindless robots, they tried to impede our advance. Tried being the critical part.

We didn't need to kill. We had to do enough damage so the golems would be out of commission for a while. With me keeping Kumoko safe, it fell to the nascent mind ninja to clear a path. She flickered all around, stabbing metal-clad enemies and leaving them to explode in pieces.

So damn cool.

If I weren't in love already, that would have done it.

There were a few other close calls, mostly when a shinobi from Suna crossed our path. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman; most of the face was covered in bandages, and I could see no discernible body features. There was this tense moment where I wasn't sure if they would attack. More golems arriving and Ino exploding them was enough to dissuade the sand shinobi from any idea.

They gave us a nod, then flickered away to join the battle.

Closer to the rock face, I scooped Kumoko up, coated my feet with chakra, and climbed or tried to. It had occurred to me that none of the Suna shinobi were trying to enter the palace, and a few steps on my climb, I understood why that was.

I heard a screech, and chakra invaded my mind; a genjutsu, or close enough. The rock wall I was stuck to faded, the world flipped, up became down, and the sunlight disappeared, leaving me in total darkness. Worse yet, it was like I was stepping on knives, and that my insides were being gouged out.

This didn't feel like an attack targeted at me directly; it was more like a trap surrounding the entire area. But this was the third time I suffered under the illusions. Even if the genjutsu release didn't work, I had thought of other ways of bypassing it.

I pushed out as many threads as possible, feeling for the surrounding area and discarding my compromised senses. Part of my threads wrapped around Ino and Kumoko. With the badger, I only made sure she wasn't struggling against my grip, while with Ino, I piloted her body to follow me. This wasn't something I did often with Ino. Unlike Karin, she didn't like being controlled by threads, but needs must.

All the while, my chakra happily slurped down the genjutsu. It still wasn't enough to dispel the technique, but it made resisting the effects easier. Now, instead of feeling trapped inside a nightmare, it was like watching a horror movie at night, with lights out, and alone in the house.

Still not something I'd recommend, but bearable.

Given the speed at which my chakra had adapted, one or more exposures would be enough to be just like a normal chakra. Easily eaten and incapable of affecting me.

With one last push, we crossed a threshold into the palace, and the technique ended. It was an area-based trap, then.

The room we entered looked like a vaulted hall or gallery, with cobwebs, dust, and detritus covering most of the area. There were stairs and doors leading deeper into the place, but the broken wall leading to a throne room showed where enemies had gone with no need to search.

"Lemme go," Kumoko growled.

"Ouch, that was unpleasant," Ino whimpered.

I put Kumoko down, then gave Ino a quick hug. Ino had a thin line of blood falling from her lips but otherwise seemed unhurt.

"Are you alright?" I asked anyway.

Kumoko didn't wait. She dashed across the broken wall and toward the abandoned throne room.

"Almost broke the technique before we escaped it," she said with a bloody grin.

"That—"

Another screech interrupted me. Whereas the others had been far away, this sounded close.

I looked around, and the bat-woman was flying toward us like a bullet. Well, it was time to end this. I was tired of being put in a genjutsu. My hands went to my pouch, ready to pick up a kunai, but Ino stopped me.

"Follow Kumoko, I'll deal with the enemy."

I looked from the approaching woman to Ino. Her eyes were firm and confident. I didn't want to.

The idea of splitting the party didn't sit well with me. Hypocritical thinking that now, when it was Ino being left behind instead of Karin.

"Don't wanna," I muttered the words without meaning to.

Ino rolled her eyes, grinned. She pushed me toward where Kumoko had gone. "I know how to counter her, now."

Ino's grin was almost feral. With blood smeared across her lip, her grin looked downright villainous.

I nodded. I didn't want to leave, but I wasn't really leaving. Ino had my beacon. There was no chance I would ignore this battle and not intervene if things went south. But Ino didn't know that. I didn't want to rob her of chances to grow and prove herself.

Ino wanted to become stronger, maybe even more than I did. Coddling her would just offend and stunt her growth.

"Give her hell," I said, then turned around and dashed toward Kumoko.

"Like you won't believe."

More screeches heralded the woman's arrival, but that wasn't my battle. I kept part of my attention on the beacon in case I needed to jump back to help, but otherwise, I left Ino to do as she pleased.

The deeper areas of the palace weren't different from my expectations: dilapidated walls and decorations, eroded pillars, and dust everywhere. The throne dominated most of the room. It was massive, looking like it was sculpted from a granite slab. Someone had done a number on the throne. It lay broken, many of the pieces scattered about.

Aside from the recent vandalism, this place wasn't new by any means, and no one had been here for a long time.

I found Kumoko waiting in the area before the giant stone throne. A broken tear on the floor led into darkness.

"That's where the skunk went," Kumoko said, tail lashing. It wasn't any of the normal tail tells. It was like a mix of anticipation and fear.

I approached, then looked inside the pathway into the abyss, just plain darkness. I could see parts of ancient machinery on the abyss walls near the broken floor, but the person who broke their way through clearly didn't care.

"What are we waiting for, snake girl?" Kumoko asked, tail wagging like an excited dog.

I cast one more look into the darkness. "You don't have to come with me," I said.

"I'm not going home," she growled. "Pops would never let me have this much fun."

That was a good enough reason to send Kumoko back, all things considered. Bratty and snooty she was, she was still the daughter of the clan's patriarch. Her year of service was nothing more than Tsuchigaru's attempt to give the she-devil more life experience. There was an unspoken agreement that I would keep her safe or at least that was how I saw the whole thing. I wasn't keen on letting her die, then having to face an already grieving gigantic badger and tell him his only daughter died under my watch.

I extended my hand to her. "Stay close, and if things turn dangerous, cancel the summon," I ordered.

Kumoko growled but didn't say anything back. She climbed onto my hand until she was perched on my shoulder. With one last look toward the ongoing battle between Ino and the batwoman, I summoned a ball of light, then jumped into the abyss.

The fall, all things considered, wasn't bad. We picked up speed, but coating hands and feet in chakra, I used the walls to cut momentum, allowing for a partially controlled descent. The tunnel downward was long and desolate until the light from below indicated the end of the path.

I gestured for Kumoko to stay quiet, canceled my light, and hopped down the last few meters until we were at the lip of the tunnel.

Down was a vast circular chamber illuminated by bluish light. It reminded me somehow of the light from the stone in my pouch. The walls were decorated with faded reliefs, rotten banners, and dust. From my vantage point, I could see the layers of sigils and inscribed seals covering the whole floor, converging on the center. Some of the sigils were familiar: time and space; others were alien to me.

The same old man I saw Temujin carry away was crumpled near one of the many pillars around the room. I couldn't tell if he was alive or dead. There was a small pool of blood near his body.

In the room's center stood a grotesquely muscular man. Heads taller than even Jiraiya. I couldn't see his face from where I was, but he was barefooted, shirtless, and wearing dark trousers. He held that Temujin guy by the neck, the same Temujin who had kidnapped Kahiko. There was a gleaming sword by the giant's feet. The ornate pommel was beautiful, even though the blade was broken.

I don't think they were friends anymore or that Temujin was alive.

The tall guy had punched through the metal armor and Temujin's torso, his bloody hand on the other side held a familiar blue-green stone.