The second half of today's update. Enjoy (and don't kill me yet, k?) Some shifitng POV's this chapter
Chapter 41 "Kakashi- san!"
About an hour after sunrise, the team had slowed on its way back to Konoha. There were flickers in the trees indicating ninja filtering out through the woods, but none had bothered them yet. The ninja that called the team to a stop had a mask, white with red stripes, and Kakashi signaled for a full stop. "What is going on?"
"Infiltration and abduction at the Hyuga residence, before dawn. Hiashi Hyuga has gone missing, although we have confirmed he was not the one taken. If you are in condition to help, we need hands available to find the enemy identity and location."
"Who was taken?" Naruto's voice was deep, harsh, but the ANBU didn't react to the edges of Kyuubi in that voice.
"Hanabi Hyuga, Hiashi's younger daughter. Kakashi- san, we could use you back at the village, but your team may join the next search party heading out if they are able. We must move now."
The team fell in behind the masked ANBU, Sai bringing up the rear. Sasuke ran alongside Naruto, and knew the manic aggression on the blonde's face was worse behind the illusion. He sent an unnamed prayer up that Naruto held his control in the face of this threat. He could imagine very well what was running through Naruto's mind.
If asked, he was going to strongly advise that Naruto stay in the village, especially if Hinata was still there. She would help ground him until this problem could be solved. Otherwise, things were bound to get bloody, and he shuddered to think what would happen if Naruto got his claws into whoever had done this.
They were met at the wall by Neji, flanked by Ino and another ninja Sasuke recognized as a veteran chuunin, adept at water jutsu. "Kakashi- san! Tsunade- sama needs your advice, and Naruto is needed at the tower. Permission to borrow Sasuke Uchiha as a fourth member of my team." There was something sharp in the Hyuga's eyes, a fierce determination that made Sasuke want to smirk. Whatever personal relationships he still had within the clan, at least Neji had shown some backbone ever since getting the 'fate' speech beaten out of him years ago by Naruto. "I need a fire wielder, and he's the best option I have available."
"The Hokage-" Kakashi began but Neji shook his head, cutting him off.
"She has authorized a temporary allowance, under conditions. You can ask for details when you see her."
Kakashi turned from looking at Neji, glancing back at Sasuke. The teen could see the judging calculation and nodded. "I can do this." Kakashi nodded once, sharply, and flicked his hand. The team fell in behind him, heading toward the tower. Naruto paused for a moment, and Sasuke could see all the signs warning of a potential disaster still scrawled all over the blonde's body. Surprisingly, it was Ino that spoke up first.
"Hinata's at the Tower, unharmed."
It was all Naruto waited for, he was a dark blur chasing the rest of his teammates in an instant. Sasuke sent one last desperate prayer up that Hinata could calm him down, before falling in line behind Neji, feeling the eyes of the other two ninja boring into his back. He let his mind focus back to the here and now, his feet catching and pushing off of branches, following the unmarked path Neji led through the trees at blinding speeds.
A low tone beep had Neji reaching for his collar, fingering a hidden comm device. Sasuke felt his attention glued forward, trying to patiently wait for more news. He didn't know near enough about the situation, just the right amount to set him on edge. "Report." The crackled burst of sound wasn't enough to make sense to Sasuke, enough static and distance to keep him from hearing words within the burst, but Neji promptly turned on his heel and bolted another direction. Sasuke could see the raised lines in the Hyuga's face, the way he was tipping his head, searching. Searching for what, Sasuke didn't know.
An explosion rocked the forest, ahead and a little to the right, and Neji corrected their course to head straight to it. They hadn't reached the source of the noise before Kimi came like a silent bomb down into their midst, shifting with an explosion of feathers. Her shoulder was a bruised impact-red, a wound that would promise to turn into brilliant colors before even her healing could repair it. She shoved something at Neji, words a rapid-fire screech that she was visibly forcing to be quieter. "Your little
pet is standing watch on your cousin, there's four ninja guarding her in a tunnel about fifty yards north-west. He was able to sneak in, so far undetected. Hana's keeping her hounds busy with their clutch of dirt- diggers, they have badger summon- beasts. Everyone is packing explosive tags and bombs." She grimaced as Ino prodded gently at her wound, healing chakra fading the color and drawing off some of the pained gleam in Kimi's eyes.
"How many?"
Kimi frowned, and glanced back over her shoulder. "A good dozen ninja that I know of. At least two of them are capable summoners. I couldn't tell you how many summons beasts, Hana's dogs are fierce but badgers... they're dirty cheaters. The ground is littered with holes, one earth- user with a penchant for mud clones and I
swear, the next time someone encases me in dirt I'm picking their eyes out. With my beak."
Sasuke suppressed a fearsome grin at that, focusing on the projected battle. "Ino should be defensive, we don't know what Hanabi's condition is and she may need healing. Can you make a storm?" He asked the last to the last, unfamiliar ninja on their team. He didn't know the man's name. At the moment, he didn't quite care. The man nodded, and Sasuke looked to Neji. The Hyuga was officially the team leader, after all. "I have an idea, but it's going to take some offensive tricks and one hell of a storm." He quickly sketched out his thoughts, dropping points for who needed to do what, providing they could pull everything off and get things taken care of quickly. It was going to be messy, violent.
Kami willing, it would get Hanabi out of there and back to Konoha before anything else happened to her.
Neji agreed, when the plan had been broken down. He'd been rolling a scrap of material between his fingers as they talked, tucking it away finally as they broke from the cover of the tree and resumed heading toward the fight. Sasuke was certain he recognized the color and style. Kimi had brought back Takeshi's collar, leaving the ermine behind to protect Hanabi. For the first time, Sasuke found himself hoping the man within the ermine was actually a ninja, and not a civilian.
He hoped he didn't fail.
Snakes, it turned out, weren't all that frightening to their current opponents, until Sasuke pulled all the stops and sent out the huge ones. Serpents, as large around as his own body and infinitely longer, stuck with violent speed among the badger summons and provided immediate relief to Hana's dogs. One snake disappeared with a puff of smoke as the dogs jumped it, before Sasuke could impress upon the dog-nin that they were 'friendly'. Their appearance started a chain reaction Sasuke was hoping for- between the mud and the explosions, they were able to mingle into the area and send Ino to watch by a suspiciously large pit in the ground. Sasuke locked kunai with another ninja, senses alert to anything heralding the storm he'd arranged, aware of Neji battling mere feet away, pummeling an opponent with blurring speed. It wasn't Naruto's bold, careless style, but the plan was probably worth his level of eagerness. Sasuke slammed a Chidori into the chest of his current assailant. It earned him a swift retaliation, mud slamming closed around his body and closing him in. He felt the heat rising in his throat, spitting fire and turning the mud into something little better than ceramic, and just as fragile. He dodged an explosion as he shattered the wall, slammed a knife into a stray beast that was trying to charge Kimi from behind, and bolted away. It was close, he could feel the moisture in the air, condensing and thickening, and he kicked another ninja in the head. It crumpled, mud slicking over his foot and calf, sticking his feet to the ground. He snarled, felt the tingle of promise burning in his shoulder, and fought against the promise of freedom in the cursed seal.
The sudden downpour of rain broke over the melee with all the ferocity of a spring storm, bringing fat drops, fresh air, and a sudden burst of relief. He sent a last pair of snakes to check on Ino, help her if she needed it, and dismissed the rest. Kimi knelt under a tree, her fist dripping blood onto a fresh corpse, her face wild and eager. Sasuke punched another ninja in the face and flickered away from the middle of the fight. Once hidden safe among the branches, he called out the lightning. Charged it between his fingers, felt the flicker of an answer in the storm, and let it spark. It rumbled into the rain, the rolling, penetrating growl of thunder, the sizzling crack of electricity that made his skin crawl and hair stand on end. He felt it, called to it and let it come willingly back to his control, a raging promise of pure nature and chaos threatening to overflow his hands. But he molded it, as he'd done so few times before, shaped it into what he wanted and then unleashed all that force.
The screams were a music of their own.
Kimi had gone to ground the instant she saw Sasuke disappear, crowding her body into a knot under a tree and stabbing viciously at a hand that appeared on the trunk next to her. It mucked out in the manner she'd seen of the earth clones in this fight, drawing a raging keen from her throat that she tried to muffle against her knee. She was
filthy, her wings weighed down with dirt and mud and blood, her patience long gone and her fingers still itching to tear and destroy. But there was no damned way she would be caught in the 'open', the burned, destroyed patch of forest now open to the storm clouds rumbling overhead.
She had expected the screams of terror from the ninja as Sasuke's lightning- beast charged down, and hoped the clone- user had gone down with the first charge. She
hated earth clones. But under the human screams and the sharp, filling sound of rolling lightning, there was a higher pitch shrieking. One she'd come to know since Neji had spared the ermine. She grimaced, risking a chance and moving under cover to the direction she knew Hanabi was supposed to be. She found Ino cradling Hanabi's limp body, hands pressed softly against the girl's head. "What happened?"
"She's unconscious, as long as she doesn't seem at risk I will let her stay unaware until Tsunade- sama or Shizune can double- check for me. She doesn't
seem injured, so far." Ino's gaze flickered to behind her, and Kimi didn't need her to say anything to get the warning in the blonde's eyes. She turned and kicked in a fluid motion that left her heel crushing down into someone's chest, and she followed it down to sink her talons through the throat. This one bled, not a clone, and she wasn't blind to the urge to rip his body open. She held it at bay, though, turning and surveying the surroundings once again. The others seemed to have the few stragglers well in hand, Hana's dogs pinning a man, alive, into the dirt. Neji was panting, hair slicked to his back in clumps that implied he'd lost his hair band a while back. She turned away from the vision of Sasuke pummeling a clone into dust with a lightning- laced hand.
"Where's Takeshi?" She demanded.
"The ermine that was here? He took off when the lightning struck the ground, though he was shrieking something awful right before. Think it scared him out of his mind, honestly." Kimi nodded, eyes intent on the ground, wanting the tracks. There
had to be tracks. the ground was simply too soaked and muddy for even the ermine's light body to avoid leaving some signs of his departure. A squishy step had her attention, Sasuke was kneeling next to them and running his own fingers over Hanabi's forehead. He seemed surprisingly gentle when he drew her eyelid up enough to see the pretty pale iris on each eye, and he leaned back with an obvious sense of relief.
"Let's get back. She needs proper medical attention and then the safety of home."
The team gathered right there, their solitary captive trussed up and unconscious on the back of one of Hana's dogs. Neji and Sasuke talked for a minute between themselves, and Kimi was further surprised when Sasuke gathered the unconscious girl in his arms. She would have bet Neji would carry her home personally. She moved forward, her sharp gaze on the swan, the young man she'd come to respect lately. But he put a hand on hers, halting her progression. "Find Takeshi. We can talk about what this all means later, when we're all accounted for and safe."
Kimi couldn't help but nod and agree to his decision. She wanted to find the ermine anyway, find out why he ran, and Neji was bound to bring Hanabi to Konoha immediately. She didn't offer a goodbye, just stood and watched the rest of the team depart. They would get there in one piece, with or without her. She had her own job, now, a little hunt to finish before she could return.
She turned her attention to the ground and resumed her hunt.
The trail wasn't clear, initially, but she soon picked up the little paw impressions, a broken twig made in his terrified rush. It was clear Takeshi hadn't bothered to hide his trail at all, and after a fair distance the paw prints stopped. The foliage here was broken up, trampled, and a set of bare human footprints led away. "Takeshi? Takeshi!"
Forest silence greeted her. A couple bug sounds, birds in the distance that hadn't been disturbed by the battle just a short time before. But no squeaks, no voice. Nothing answered her, and she sighed and followed the footsteps pressed slow and deep into the dirt. These wandered aimlessly, twisting around and over the undergrowth, a flower crushed, a bit of sapling bent and stuck into the soft spring earth.
"You should go back. Forget about me." She froze, the voice coming from above her head, somewhere among the branches. The trail ended a few feet away at the base of a nearby tree.
"I don't forget easily." She tipped her face to study the foliage above her, but except the pair of feet on a branch, his body was hidden away. "I told Neji Hyuga I would bring Takeshi back to him."
"Takeshi was never real. Whatever he is, is gone."
She took in the words, the soft tone. It wasn't the quiet of an unspoken threat, but the hitched softness of pain. "Your memories came back."
"Yes."
She gave him a minute to continue, but he didn't. Kimi cocked her head and tried to make out more of his outline, to no avail. "Are you a threat to me, to any of us?"
"No," then a moment later, "not by choice." A shifting of branches, a rustling in the leaves but she couldn't see any more of him than she had since she'd arrived. "It's all jumbled, but I wouldn't betray this place. Not by choice. And I seem to owe a debt to Neji Hyuga for sparing my life."
"Then come back with me. Take a couple days, work through the rest of whatever memories are flooding your head. And then if you must leave, give Neji the courtesy of your thanks. Surely you owe him that much."
Her words seemed to have made some impact. He stayed quiet for long minutes, then the creaky sounds of a branch bending under weight. "If I come back... I will come as Takeshi, and... I will subject to the collar. Until I know for sure if I am a threat." He hesitated, and Kimi frowned at the uncertainty in his voice. Who was this man? "I would owe you greatly if you would tell no one but Neji- san that you have spoken with me today."
She would love to know who this person was behind the ermine face, and if she wasn't so gross and tired and aching for a bath to get rid of the damnable muck, she'd have pushed the issue. "You can owe me a proper explanation of this later. I don't trust you yet, maybe I never will. But I will hold you to this debt as long as you are here." Her only answer was a body descending from the tree, the change already muddling his features as he landed on his legs, back bowing and face ducked down toward his chest. The only thing she was certain of was his pale skin and black, shoulder length hair. He looked like he should have been her age, or older, definitely more than the teen ninja she worked with so much recently. but the rest of him was fouled by the fur spreading, his body shrinking down to the pouncy, irrascable ermine she was accostumed to. It was a slower change than her own, not unlike Neji's first shifts, and she wondered if they were of similar exposure time to the animal counterparts. Surely Takeshi had more sentient control than Neji did, but that could have been his body being stuck in the animal form for so long.
She was going to have
so many questions for this man. She scooped the ermine up, fingers gripping the loose scruff, and he didn't even twist around at the discomfort. Instead she met beady eyes with her own golden. "I don't need to repeat myself about what will happen if you do anything stupid, do I?"
He stared back at her, twisting his head side- to- side in a careful, slow manner that couldn't be mistaken as anything other than a negative. She sighed, clasped both hands around him and held him to her chest as she took off for Konoha. She wanted food, a hot bath, and all this mystery done and
over with. She didn't care which order, just all of it
soon.
Humans had far more drama than she'd ever anticipated.
*****
You know the drill. R&R, if you would. email update alerts to those who leave me a message for one. And I've noticed AFF has removed my hit count. Pity. 91 reviews, 41 chapters, 90K + wordcount total for four years of working on this. And there's still more to come.
My thanks to every reader~ ShadowWolf
