I ignored the burning stares directed my way and found a nice, pretty patch of grass near the river, with the trees around us providing cover from anyone travelling through the road. The eyes hadn't left me as I put the fabric over the grass. They hadn't faltered when I summoned food. They still bore into me when I placed the pastries over the fabric covering the lovely grass.
It was a picnic, really; no idea why they were looking at me.
No, I mean, I knew why they were looking.
Karin was easy. The barely contained giggles told me she just wanted to watch the world burn, that devil. Ino was more complicated. I had been avoiding summoning clones near her unless it was a battle or something like that. My clones knew to take things seriously when the situation demanded, and I hadn't had to deal with any odd clone behaviour that Ino could see for a while now. Was this a clone rebellion or something?
Tenten, well, for her, I had no idea. Maybe she just found it strange, somehow. I knew she had weird ideas about me ever since I beat the crap out of Neji.
"Hinata-chan, what do you mean?" Ino asked. Her voice had a dangerous edge to it.
I took a cupcake and stuffed it into my mouth.
Karin giggled.
What the heck was taking Recon-chan so long? And what the heck did she whisper to Ino?
Recon-chan slowed down once she was close to the town. With her meager chakra sense, she couldn't feel anyone in the area, but that wasn't reason to lower her guard. She jumped from the branch and dashed forward until her back was to the town's wall.
She stopped and listened.
Birds calling, wood burning. No bark of dogs, or sound of people, or civilization.
Instead of jumping over the wall, Recon-chan used doton to cross under and into town. She didn't leave the earth immediately, popping out just enough to look around and ensure there was no enemy. There were signs of battle.
She saw a few splashes of blood. Torn clothing, doors broken, walls toppled; cracked earth, craters, explosion marks, and more, but no people, and no corpses. The way I approached from, put me close to a cemetery. Even the graves were dug out.
What the hell happened here?
"And?" Ino sat in front of me, her face too close.
"Yes, and?" Karin asked from a bit far away.
I glared at Karin.
Ino rounded away from me, also glaring. "Stay out of this, Karin."
Karin paled, nodded. Tenten just snorted.
I thought I was safe, but nope, Ino wasn't letting go.
"Explain?" It was less of a request and more of a command.
"Err, well, you see," I said, looking everywhere but at Ino. "My clones tend to be a bit on the rebellious side."
I'd have words with my clone. She was delaying things on purpose; I just knew it.
Recon-chan sneaked around a destroyed house, toward what she thought was the town center, from where the strange chakra signature was coming from. Now this close, she felt something else. Other signatures that weren't chakra, exactly, but she couldn't say what else it was.
After rounding one last destroyed building, she stopped.
Ahead was a group of people. Five of them, big and bulky, wearing what looked like full metal plate armor, but the proportions were wrong. Their arms were too big, the torso too large. Each had a spiked morning star that looked wicked dangerous.
One of the big grunts heaved the weapon and struck a building that hadn't had a wall collapse yet. The impact reverberated, and the wall toppled.
The other person, who had the same strange signature as the ferret, was a woman also wearing metal armor, but unlike her companions, she didn't have a helmet, exposing sandy blond hair and fair skin. Her armor also looked more like a decorative piece, with spikes on the shoulder and a skirt-like part, colored in light green, unlike the menacing, heavy armors of the others.
The armor-wearing woman walked to the wreckage of the house, then inside. The grunts stayed outside, a sort of guarding perimeter formation.
These people didn't look like shinobi at all. It reminded Recon-chan of eastern medieval fantasy types from the before. Were those the ones attacking Suna that Shisui had mentioned, and if so, why were they here?
The border with the Land of Fire wasn't that far. Just a few hours away by ninja speed. There was a chance these guys would attack Fire as well.
Recon-chan observed for a few more minutes. There were noises, sounds of things breaking, swearing, a lot of swearing.
The woman left the house and then walked toward another, still intact house. The armored goons followed, like trained dogs. One of the big armor guys hit a wall, it toppled, and the woman walked inside.
That seemed to be the pattern here. The woman was looking for something, it seemed, and not bothering to be gentle about it. It was more than enough information. Recon-chan waited until the woman left the house, and when the band of thugs turned in the direction of yet another intact house, the clone decided she'd seen enough.
She considered her options one last time. As much as she wanted to know what was happening here, that wasn't her mission. No one in sight needed saving. Recon-chan didn't want to think about the implications of that, but as things were, she didn't have any reason to intervene, even if her mission was a bust. How would they deliver the damn ferret now?
She turned, ducking out of sight again. It was time to leave.
Then things turned strange. The walls melted, the sky turned black, and colors inverted. Bizarre sounds, like screeching and yelling, reached her ears. Recon-chan stopped. Blinked. She recognized the tells. Genjutsu.
Wasn't she supposed to be immune? No, she noticed her chakra moving to remove the technique. It just wasn't working like it always had. It was like it was trying to chew something that it had never chewed before and it just didn't know how to.
Kakashi's early lessons came to mind, how to break from an illusion. She made the seal, moved the chakra. "Kai!" she said, and nothing happened.
"What do we have here?" The woman's voice was one of those annoying voices that made you angry just by hearing it.
Recon-chan tried again. "Kai!"
There was a chuckle. Then something heavy, spiky and painful put an end to things.
"What do you mean rebellious?" Ino asked, still up on my face.
"Yeah, what do you mean?" Karin mimicked. Her voice was full of mirth.
Ino cast a warning glare behind her, but turned back to me.
I didn't want to deal with this right now. Really. I knew the clones were a bit of a problem. Most of them expressed the facets of myself I often suppressed. They had less inhibition and often didn't care about the consequences, doing things I'd wanted to do, but never would have the courage to.
Thankfully, I was saved. By a clone no less. Recon-chan's death.
Memories flooded my head, her last impressions, the pain of her death, and the question she whispered into Ino's ears.
I bolted up, looking in the town's direction.
"My clone just got killed," I said, staving off any questions.
Was it bad that I was happy my clone bit the bullet?