"Fujin, Raijin. Take these sealing scrolls. Steal everything that isn't torn to shreds and isn't nailed down. If it is nailed down, tear it loose and take the nails too." My order cuts through the settling silence as the Legendary Idiot Brothers stop fussing over the comically large bump on Raijin's forehead, snatching the scrolls out of the air as I toss them over.
Sealing scrolls aren't exactly common and can be a bit of an investment, but they aren't really rare either (at least, depending on what's contained in the seal). Simple scrolls like these that only store inanimate objects are easy enough to come by and Hiruko (or perhaps the small civilization that had been here in ages past before he razed them to the ground) had enough of a stockpile that me taking a handful hadn't even caused the chimera to bat an eye.
The handful he knew about, at least. Days were long here on the mountaintop after all and the palace vast. Between Tsubaki and I exploring the palace whenever we weren't being watched by Hiruko or his henchmen, we found plenty of hiding places where we could squirrel away everything we managed to get our sticky fingers on. I'm pretty sure that Suien had been doing the exact same thing and probably has pocketed more than the two of us combined, though of course he denied it when I tried to question him about it and had brusquely told me that the only benefit he saw to sharing our hiding places, was so that he could lie about the location of his while he raided mine.
Paranoid prick.
Still, the stolen and borrowed sealing scrolls came in clutch now, as it contained both standard ninja gear we'd need for the road ahead (filched weaponry, bandages, some extra clothes, your standard camping supplies really) and it allowed both Idiot Brothers to quickly move through the room, gathering whatever papers weren't torn to shreds or covered in spilled embalming fluids, tearing the maps that were still legible off the walls, even picking up some of the machinery and equipment that had miraculously survived.
As they moved quickly through the room, using their vast strength to clear debris and gather everything within reach, I joined Tsubaki near the entrance of Hiruko's hidden chamber. She's holding her long braid, the thin cactus needle that the chimera had thrown still embedded near its end, her eyes wide. She startles as I place a hand on her shoulder, gaze flitting to me before her expression softens in recognition as my other hand comes up and gently extracts the large senbon from her hair.
"Tsubaki, are you all right?"
"I… I am. I am now, though for a moment there…" she trails off weakly, and I can only nod, understanding what she lacks the words to say out loud.
She was 'just' a chūnin, and judging from what she had shared about her and Mizuki's past, a rather sheltered one at that. She had likely never had to face an opponent of Hiruko's level, had never faced such killing intent before or come so close to dying. I glance back over my shoulder, spotting the smashed pillars, the trail of destruction his metal body had carved through the room, the crater he had made, his emaciated, bandage-wrapped body lying nearby while his decapitated head, stitched mouth gaping wide open, was pinned a distance away.
'The majority of ninja have likely never faced something like Hiruko.' I think grimly, knowing that in reality, this strange world was actually filled with such monsters, some of whom could put Hiruko's power (and weirdness) to shame.
"What about you? Your wounds they-" Tsubaki's voice breaks through my musings and I can see the woman's eyes glued to the crisscrossing lines of electrical burns that cover my forearms and slash through my new tiger stripes.
"Hurt like a bitch, but I'll be fine. Pain is good; means I'm still alive." I say, trying to smile, but probably only managing a brittle grimace.
Exhaustion is pulling at my mind, seeping down into my bones, a cloak draped over my shoulders feeling so heavy it drags me down to the ground. My recent transformation had been horribly disgusting at first and unbelievably painful afterwards and pretty much immediately afterwards I had gotten into the dangerous fight of my life during which I got electrocuted.
'I am so fucking done with today.' I groused.
If my next fight came in a year from now, it'd be too soon. Still, that reminded me of the fight going on outside, a three way brawl between Suien, Hiruko's henchmen and whoever the hell was attacking us. We needed to finish up here before that battle ended one way or the other.
"Let's move." I nodded towards Tsubaki and we both stepped into Hiruko's secret stash.
All in all, the room is surprisingly small, a far cry from the large hall where the Brothers are still doing their clean-up. The air is thick with the scent of paper and antiseptic. Large cabinets are pushed against the walls, alternated by deep alcoves, most of them filled with glass tubes containing specimens of half-formed animals and abandoned experiments. My steps falter when one of them contains just a single detached arm, before I shake my head and push on as I step carefully, boots barely making a sound, scanning the room in beats. Shelves sag under the weight of jars filled with organs, preserved animals, and vials of darkly tinged fluid. Some are labelled in Hiruko's spidery handwriting, others covered in seals that I study from afar with a wary look.
I've spent enough time under Hiruko's tutelage to know better than to touch anything without thinking, but my curiosity hums like a live wire. Tsubaki hovers nearby, eyes wide, hand resting on the hilt of a kunai. She flinches as I pick up a thick book from a nearby workbench and begin leafing through it.
"Careful," she whispers. "This place…"
"I know. Still, it must be somewhere here, maybe even disguised." I respond, taking out another scroll, unfurling it and placing the book, along with two smaller scrolls and a map, onto one of the sealing matrixes, before going through the hand signs for the Sealing Technique.
"Lets keep looking. The technique itself is mainly seal-based, but it's deeply tied to combining elemental natures and hybridizing different organisms, so look for anything on that as well." I instruct Tsubaki, who gives me a nod as we move further into the small room.
I work methodically, scanning each scroll, each parchment, each vial. Notes on combining elemental chakra with bodily modifications, experiments with hybrid abilities, blood signatures required for partial absorption — everything Hiruko considered valuable. Most of it is nonsensical without context, but my eyes jump, picking out the patterns. I cross-reference mental notes I've made over the past two weeks. Every step, every detail, every step in Hiruko's experiments is catalogued.
Yet after all that, after carefully checking every scroll and skimming through every book and emptying every shelf while trying to keep an eye out for any traps or failsafes…
"Nothing." My tone is bitter and worry begins to coil in my gut.
Did I make a miscalculation? Hiruko had all the vibes of a mad scientist and as such I had expected heavy note-taking. Chaotic, non-sensical, likely blood-covered note-taking, but some form of record keeping nonetheless. After all, in the wise words of Adam Savage, "the only difference between messing around and science, is writing it down." But perhaps being a mad scientist meant something different in this world?
'Don't tell me… that the bastard never actually wrote his technique down?!'
Worry steadily begins to bloom into panic as I desperately try to ignore the growing possibility that the dangers of the past two weeks had been for nothing. Well, perhaps not nothing considering my incomplete Tiger form, but still, the Chimera Technique had been the key that would unlock several (very important) doors down the line. Without it, I could face massive set-backs or even complete failure in some cases.
"Anything?" I desperately ask Tsubaki, but the woman glances over her shoulder as she closes another ledger, ruefully shaking her head.
"I've seen more anatomical drawings than I ever did during all of our years during the Academy, in enough detail that I'll probably skip eating meat for the foreseeable future. But nothing like the sealwork you described." She explains and I can't stop myself from letting out a frustrated sigh, my back to the wall as I sink down to the floor, palms of my hands pressing tightly against my eyes as I rest my chin on my knees.
I can feel Tsubaki move through the tight space, hovering at my side in indecision for a moment before she takes a knee next to me, slim hand resting on my (now impressively muscled) arm, her voice trying to sound optimistic.
"I'm sorry Mizuki. If you want we can keep looking? Or perhaps his henchmen know more? From what you've told me, and from his rants that I managed to overhear, it doesn't sound like his transformation was finished yet. Considering how important it was to him, I don't think that he'd try to just go off memory alone, so the technique must be written down… somewhere." She reasons and to my surprise it does a lot to quell my rising worry.
I pull my hands away from my face, glancing towards Tsubaki, a tired smile playing across my lips.
"You know, that's actually a really good… point…"
My voice trails off and my eyes widen as from the corner of my eye, I spot something just behind her. Tsubaki blinks in surprise, then lets out a startled yelp as I scramble from my seated position, hurrying to the opposite side of the small room on hands and knees, scattering some loose papers. A writing desk, wide and heavy, its ancient scarred top covered in notes, a pair of vials covered in greasy residue and yet another dissected rat (perhaps the same one from Hiruko's first 'lecture'?). However, what had caught my eye wasn't on the table.
It was underneath it, a darker shade against its shadowed belly. I crane my head, a wide grin showing off my new enlarged canines as I spot what had caught the corner of my eye.
"Hiruko, you sly bastard." I chuckle, my clawed hand trailing softly against the wood underneath the desk, tracing the outlines of a barely visible matrix of scripts. Despite my limited knowledge of fuinjutsu, the seal was instantly recognizable. After all, it looked almost identical to the ones I had kept seeing on all those sealing scrolls I had been using so far.
I'm eager, but I'm also not stupid. The claws of my fingers scrape softly over the wood, the ink of the seal penetrating the timber, but very faintly humming to my senses, likely the traces of chakra contained within the pigment. But I'm looking for something more and following the grooves of the wood, expanding my tentative touch ever so carefully, I finally come across it. No ink this time, the pattern is scorched, the seal burnt into the wood itself, much rougher, much more solid to my touch and I catch the distinct smell of blood.
It's not much, in fact the amount was so small that I hadn't caught it from the other side of the room, considering the stench of conservatives and smoke wafting in from the main hall. Not to mention the amount of blood that already lingered in the air from past experiments. However, now that I was so close, face inches away from the wood, the scent was unmistakeable, especially since large amounts of it were steadily seeping in from the main hall as well.
Hiruko's own blood.
I remembered my security complaints to the Frog-masked ANBU when he had put me under his hypnosis, on the outdated security systems in their supermax prison and the baffling lack of seal, blood and chakra based safety measures. While the prison personnel had led slip that most of my suggestions/complaints had been brought to the desk of one very intrigued Morino Ibiki, it had also been clear that the kind of security measures I was thinking off were impractical to implement in such a large and public space.
However, that didn't mean they were impossible to create and in fact, they were perfect for securing a missing nin's most prized technique and from what I knew of the man after these past two weeks, I knew that Hiruko trusted blood more than locks. I didn't know what would've happened if I'd tried to unseal the larger seal without first deactivating this one, but I wasn't keen to find out. Knowing Hiruko, it probably would've fused my hand to the table or something. Or turned me into an iguana. Or just killed me.
"Fujin, Raijin, toss me that corpse, will you?" I call out, hearing a 'coming!' from one of the brothers, before something suddenly lands right next to the desk with a disgustingly crunchy wet 'slap!'
Tsubaki lets out a startled shriek, which I'm somewhat thankful for as it hides the sound of the back of my head slamming into the underside of the desk. What? I'd like to see you stay cool as a cucumber when you're dealing with a missing nin's blood-based sealing matrix and a fucking corpse gets tossed over like a soggy wet blanket.
Rubbing the back of my head with a wince, I glance at the decapitated body at my side.
"Thanks guys!"
"Sure thing Boss!"
Glancing from the corpse to the table, I grab one of Hiruko's thin hands, the emaciated flesh practically swallowed inside my meaty fist. Now, judging by the way this world operated, the likely way that Hiruko deactivated the blood seal was to bite his thumb and press it in the middle of the lines of scripts, something that he had done so often that I could even feel the barest hint of an indentation there.
'Fuck that, I'm not biting a dead dude's fucking thumb.'
Instead, I pulled up the corpse into a half-seated position, taking the arm I'd grabbed and dabbing the stiffening dead fingers into the exposed trachea (which makes my stomach do flips and gets an audible 'hurk!' from Tsubaki as she looks away). Gritting my teeth, I power through the strange sensation and even more disturbing sounds. Once the fingers are good and bloody, I press Hiruko's thumb into the middle of the blood seal. Briefly, the script sparks with chakra, light racing over the scorch marks in the seal, before there's a poof of smoke in the other matrix and my hand shoots out to catch what it releases before it can clatter to the floor.
Letting Hiruko's body drop to the floor, I rise to my full height, eyes glued to the object clenched tightly in my hand. A single black scroll bound in faded crimson thread, the kanji for "融合" — Fusion — burned into its lacquered surface. No ornate casing, no title, yet I recognize for what it truly is: power.
I check it over for additional seals or locks, but there's nothing. Not too surprising, considering Hiruko's base rarely even got visitors in the first place, much less visitors that would've made it to this room and then figure out the blood-bound safety measure. Slowly, I open the rolled-up paper, eyes flitting over the page, tracing the various schematics, the expertly drawn sketches and figures, the rolling brushwork of sealing scripts and symbols.
"This… this…"
'… I can't fucking read any of this shit!'
With a bone-tired sigh, I roll up the scroll, before tucking it inside my shirt, next to the stack of papers containing the ingredients for the second part of the Tiger potion. I really need to figure out a safer way of storing such important documents. Shame that I can't just check them into a bank or something.
"This is gonna take a lot of homework." I finish morosely.
The studies under Hiruko had helped somewhat at least, and as it stood I was fairly certain that with a bit of practice, I'd at the very least be able to incorporate another's DNA signature, at least to the point that I could fool blood based security like the seals on the Vein of Gelel and the Dragon Vein. But incorporating kekkai genkai outright? That'd take a more dedicated understanding, not just of basic biology, but also sealing as a whole and the inner workings of kekkai genkai in particular. As far as I understood it, judging from what I understood of the scroll and Hiruko's own rants, he had tried to answer where kekkai genkai actually came from.
Not as in, what is their history or ancestry, but on a more biomechanical level. Where in the body were the alterations located that meant the difference between just being good at Water and Wind jutsu, and being able to make Demonic Ice mirrors? Why was it that dojutsu could be swapped like fucking lightbulbs, but giving someone an unique nature transformation seemed downright impossible? Orochimaru had access to a batch of one hundred babies and Hashirama cells, but only Tenzo survived with a far inferior version of the Shodaime's unique abilities.
What was different in the body of a kekkai genkai user? What organs functioned differently? How was chakra guided through their body when they transformed it in an element that another ninja going through the exact same handseals simply could not replicate?
Hiruko had made some advancement in this at least, considering he'd managed to incorporate both the Swift and the Steel Release, but he hadn't exactly spelled it out in layman's terms in the scroll. It was hardly an instruction manual after all, the Chimera Technique wasn't something that Hiruko was willing to teach to someone in the first place. It was more the scattered, manic note-keeping of a mad scientist who barely understood his own success enough and who sought to replicate and push it further.
'I'll get it eventually. I'm not planning on running into any particular kekkai any time soon after all. As long as I get it to the point I incorporate antoher's blood by the time of Temujin's invasion, I'm golden, and that only happens after the Chunin Exams, which are… whoever the fuck knows many months away.'
I blink in surprise, glancing over towards Tsubaki.
"Hey, what's the date?"
"Uhm, somewhere early in March, I think. The 8th or 9th? I lost count cooped up in the palace. Why? Is it to do with those lunar cycles Hiruko's obsessed with?" the woman answers in surprise as I mull her answer over.
"No, nothing like that, just… planning." I muse.
Right, the Chuunin Exams are, what, somewhere between a couple of months to half a year away? Naruto became a ninja the same night he kicked the original Mizuki's ass, meaning that while he was subjected to the Thousand Years of Death, I was being interrogated by ANBU.
Not sure which one of us got off worse to be honest.
It had taken almost a month to escape the prison and then a little under a week to get to Mount Shumisen, where we've been roughly two weeks. So either Naruto was still discovering the joy of weed-pulling on his D-Ranks, or had just set out on the series' first (and honestly, still one of the best) arcs, wholly unprepared and unawares.
Plenty of time for me to become at least semi-proficient with the Chimera Technique. I hope.
"C'mon, let's get out of here. If at all possible, I want to skirt past the battles outside. I can still feel my hair stand on end from that lightning attack and I'm pretty sure Raijin lost one of the few braincells he still had left smashing into the pillar like that." I order, swiftly moving out of the room, signalling the Brothers to wrap things up.
I almost walked past the workbench with Hiruko's head pinned to it, before pausing in my steps. I didn't have the special scrolls that hunter nin use to seal away their prey and I didn't know what would happen if I tried to force a corpse like Hiruko's into a seal that wasn't made for living (or, well, once alive) matter.
'Still though… this might be useful.'
Feeling somewhat macabre, I reach out and grasp Hiruko's long white hairs, before pulling him off the embedded senbon, before looking around. Finding a piece of trap lying nearby that wasn't too filled with holes, I wrapped the head inside like a knapsack, before leading my strange little group towards the entrance hall of the massive palace. Flitting through the massive white-marbled doors we came to the top of the ancient cracked stairs we had climbed when we first came here. Below us spread the molten, twisted remains of what had once been the surrounding city quarters, now buried underneath long cooled slabs of molten stone. Further down below stood the blue dragon gate, though it was opened to show of the cracked, blackened expanse beyond.
I had expected to fighting to have reached here by now, or at the very least see San here, perhaps locked in a battle with Suien, but the massive field lay empty. The sounds of combat were coming from beyond the edge of this upper plateau, further down the winding road to the third gate, past the paths lined with the massive cacti the Idiot Brothers had become so fond of.
Not that I was really happy about moving towards the sound of battle, but brief attempts at scouting during our stay these past two weeks had revealed that the path towards the third gate was the safest and easiest exit from the palace grounds, short of just jumping straight off the top of the mountain towards the world below.
The Brothers could maybe survive it. With my new enhancement, I could potentially. Still though, that was quite a drop…
And so despite my concerns, we moved swiftly down the winding path, quickly coming across the ruined remains that had once been the third gatehouse. Deep slashes crisscrossed the outer façade of the structure, clearly made by a large scale cutting technique, Suien's work no doubt. Much of the ancient gold and stone decorations that had given the building such a distinguished, almost melancholy look had been torn apart in what had apparently been a sudden and fierce battle.
As I could personally attest to, Suien did not fight fair and liked to ambush his foes. However, he also had a chip on his shoulder where the lanky twins were concerned and I didn't put it past him to have gloated before launching his attack on San, who thanks to his bird-like summon had unparalleled air superiority and the ability to rain down explosive artillery with abandon.
Probably why entire parts of the building weren't just cut or destroyed, but outright gone.
I spare a brief thought to the ancient civilization that had suffered so much already at the hands of Hiruko and his people before we've shot past the ruined gatehouse, nothing more than an empty ruin now, a reminder only of tragedy.
Our flight down the mountain is hurried and soon the walls begin closing in, bringing us closer to the ravine where the gate of Ni was nestled tightly into the cliff walls. Not that much of the gate still stood. Not even the walls of the ravines were so close together anymore, the gap between the two widened by the tell-tale afterglow of massive explosions and heavy impacts, even an Earth jutsu or two.
The source of the large scale destruction was clear when a series of bright fireballs erupted in front of us, forcing us to shield our faces from the light and heat for a moment, before the resulting cloud of dust was slowly tugged away by the winds that perpetually surrounded the mountain this high up. With the obstructing dust gone, we could properly see the battlefield for the first time.
Only to see Ni, her (distinctive) torso sticking out of a massive lion-dog, which was attacking both Suien and a squad of ANBU led by a familiar Tiger mask while far above, San was similarly sticking out of an eagle-owl of some kind, raining down explosive feathers with incoherent screams of rage and grief, make-up running down his face in messy streaks.
"The fuck?" I can't help but ask as the Idiot Brothers rumbled to a halt at my side.
"Doggy!" Raijin exclaimed happily upon seeing Ni's giant monster.
It let out a roar that visibly shook the air, before it's massive jaw seemingly unhinged, sending out a massive torrent of fire that violently tore apart the already ruined landscape that forced the ANBU squad to dodge out of the way, only to be hemmed in by the explosions raining down from above.
For a moment our group just looks on at the destruction as Suien launches a water dragon at the doglike monster, apparently shouting something taunting that caused San to hurl down curses with even louder screams.
"Bad doggy." Fujin concludes, his monobrow furrowed heavily.
"Mizuki, what do we do? They're in trouble." Tsubaki presses, looking worried.
She was right. The tight ravine made the larger numbers of the ANBU squad moot in front of the wide-spread attacks that San's and Ni's summons were capable of. I didn't see Ichi or his snakes anywhere and judging by the grief-stricken San and the grin on Suien's face, I had a pretty good idea what happened to the other half of the set of twins. Similarly, I could only see Ni's massive lion-turtle-dog, not the two smaller cyborg wolves she was capable of summoning.
However, both Suien and the ANBU were still at a clear disadvantage.
"San is the biggest problem. Up there in the sky, nobody can touch him while that freaky bird of his doesn't seem to be running out of ammo any time soon. Ni's turtle-dog is huge and strong, but slow. They can keep it on its toes, keep dancing around it. I just hope they got something in their arsenal that will manage to pierce its defenses." I conclude swiftly, my eyes flitting over the battle, trying to figure out to best way to make our entrance count.
My gaze is drawn to Suien, who dodges another exploding feather with a curse, before disappearing in a watery Body Flicker, appearing again higher up the walls of the ravine already in the classic Naruto run as he speeds straight up, trying to close the gap between him and San's bird. Even mad with grief though, San sees the approaching Taki nin and his bird, fused with his lower half, reacts instantly to an unseen command, barreling away and leaving glowing feathers in its wake, like a screen of flares.
Suien flies through handseals at immense speeds and unleashes a wave of water, allowing the force of it to push him back as he cuts the chakra to his feet, allowing gravity to pull him down. The wave of water falls short of San's bird, but at least washes away some of the dangerous feathers, dousing them before they can explode. He didn't manage to catch all of them though, and like a series of fireworks, the remaining glowing quills explode in bright fireballs, their shockwaves buffeting Suien as he tumbles down again.
Good to know that Water jutsu were effective against the feathers at least, but the range of most Water techniques was clearly insufficient to catch up to the speeding bird.
'Man, what I wouldn't give for a gun right about now…' I thought, before my eyes slid past the recovering form of Suien and towards the massive creature further back, the lion-turtle making a clumsy swipe at a couple of ANBU.
The special operatives managed to dodge the slow blow, but it was still powerful enough that it tore up the ground into great chunks with ease. However, I wasn't focused on the beast, but rather the woman sticking up out of its neck.
"Come on, just die already!" Ni roared at her opponents, seemingly completely unafraid of facing a full combat squad of ANBU gunning for her head, as she cracked a meters-long whip forwards in wide, sweeping arcs.
Which gives me an idea.
"Fujin, Raijin, I need you to keep the big doggy busy, alright? Make sure it can't eat me, please." I ask the giant brothers, looking from the massive bruise smattered across Fujin's forearm and the equally purple one covering Raijin's forehead.
They're not at 100% and are out of ranged option after going through our cactus needle supply, but Ni isn't exactly fresh either. The giants exchange a look before shrugging.
"Sure thing Boss."
And with that, they break out in a lumbering run, picking up a surprising amount of speed as they barrel down the rocky path towards the chaotic battlefield, with me close on their heels, obscured by their towering forms. The massive turtle-dog is still chasing the illusive ANBU, seemingly completely unbothered by the kunai and shuriken that ping harmlessly off its armored hide, but the stomps of the Legendary Idiot Brothers still catch Ni's attention, who looks over her shoulder in surprise.
"Ah, Mizuki! C'mon, take these Leaf bastards out, in our masters' names!" she calls out with a grin, turning her back on me as she directs her beast to move away from a Wind Bullet that had been on a direct course with her head.
A costly mistake.
Her beast goes to pounce on an ANBU that had to dodge out of the way of an exploding feather, but now finds herself within reach of the massive beast, Ni's whip already arcing around to smash down on her opponent with devastating force.
The lion-dog never manages to take off, a legendary brother slamming into each knee, effectively hamstringing the great monster as its hind leg collapse underneath itself. The impact shakes the earth but I keep moving, powerful legs pumping away as I use Fujin's shoulder as a springboard. I soar over the creature's back, sprinting over its ridged back towards where Ni's body is molded to her summons. She half-turns in shock, rage beginning to twist her features as she tries to bring the whip back around again.
"You dare?!" her screech is piercing and loud, but before she can finish her awkward movement, I've sped up even further, moving just shy of a full Body Flicker.
In less than a heartbeat, I'm standing over her, my arm shooting out, slamming into the back of her elbow, halting her own strike dead in its tracks. My clawed hand tightens painfully and I can feel bones grind together underneath her flesh and skin.
"Sorry, I'm borrowing this." I say glibly, before my muscles bulge and with a grunt of effort, I tear her arm clean off.
Her scream is even louder this time and to my surprise, the lion-turtle roars in kind, clearly some sensory feedback. It struggles mightily to kick the brothers off its legs, but they just clamp their thick arms even tighter as they grunt in exertion. Even disarmed, Ni still tries to kill me, mentally ordering her great beast to try and turn around, ineffectively trying to snap its jaws at me, but it can't turn its head that far. Within the blink of an eye, Ni has a kunai in her remaining hand, the gooey black flesh surrounding her lower body warping and pulling away as she moves up, trying to ram the cold steel through my eye.
My hand shoots up, snatching her wrist, halting the attack dead in its tracks. She's surprisingly strong in this fused state, but since my new upgrade, I'm still stronger. Wide-eyed and with a crazed snarl on her face, Ni keeps struggling against me, mimicking the desperate moves of the monster underneath me. For a moment I worry I'll lose my footing, until the shadow of an ANBU suddenly materializes behind the crazed woman, a truly expertly timed Body Flicker denoting the user's skill with the technique. Not that I'm really surprised when I spot the familiar tiger-themed mask.
There's no pause, no halting moment to stabilize or reorient. The figure moves immediately, smoothly stepping into the flow of battle as one hand shoots out, grabbing a fistful of Ni's hair, harshly yanking her head back with a brutal gesture. In that same movement, his other arm moves like a blurry shadow across her throat, knife parting flesh with ease.
Ni's eyes widen and she stays conscious for a surprisingly long moment considering the gruesome wounds, likely a result of the chimera technique, her body surviving off of the beast it's fused to. Clearly thinking along similar lines, the ANBU flips through several handseals and I can feel the distinct heat of a Fire technique building up. Not that I stick around. I extract the whip from Ni's detached hand and then look to Suien who's still trying to close the distance to San's bird.
"Suien! Left wall! Left wall!" I roar as I Body Flicker towards the right side of the ravine, feet gluing me horizontally to the sheer surface, while behind me I can hear a gruff voice exclaim "Katon: Great Fireball" with a sense of finality.
I try to block out the resultant garbled scream and the scent of cooked meat, focusing instead on the jōnin that just managed to ward off another assault of exploding feathers.
The Taki nin's eyes flit towards me, annoyance clear in his eyes before his gaze snaps to the long whip held in my fists and I can see understanding bloom across his face. He gives me a tight nod, before blasting off a series of small balls of water from his mouth, forcing San to wheel his bird out of the way. As the lanky twin screams obscenities at Suien, the man flips through several handseals, before disappearing in a Body Flicker, just as San's bird flaps its massive wings, a veritable curtain of glowing plumage slamming into the ground where Suien had just stood.
It goes up in a veritable haze of heat and pressure, but Suien is already on the left side of the ravine, running higher and higher as San maneuvers his bird around. I had hoped that San's rage would've caused him to make a mistake, maybe order his bird on a collision course with the killer of his twin, but annoyingly, the thin man seemed satisfied with doing his best Deidara impression.
Seeing the cliff face that Suien had landed on partially collapsing in on itself under a renewed barrage from San's exploding chicken, I had to concede it was a hell of a likeness.
Suien kept running upwards, even using a Body Flicker mid-stride to scale the massive ravine wall, firing off several lower ranked water-techniques, likely to conserve chakra. He aimed them deliberately high and San ducked his bird lower. He wasn't blinded by grief to the point that he'd make a foolish mistake like giving up his ranged advantage, but that didn't mean he was thinking rationally either. He didn't consider even for a moment that Suien was throwing his shots wide on purpose, hemming him in.
The only moment that he knew something was going on was when a thick cord of leather wrapped itself around his neck. San's eyes widened and instinctively he urged his mount to speed up, to get him out of the range of the danger and I gritted my teeth, holding onto Ni's whip for dear life. The impact of San's bird suddenly accelerating was enough to send a tremor through my shoulders and arms, but here was where my prison training came in clutch. At this point I was an absolute master at sticking myself to surfaces, so I glued my feet against the cliff face, my whole body straining as I kept San in place, feeling like a certain Mr. Unchained during his work-outs.
The lanky man's arms flailed before his hand dipped into his pouch, clearly going for a kunai to cut the rope as his bird kept pouring on more speed, to the point that spiderwebs were beginning to shoot out from underneath the soles of my feet, my chakra tearing the wall apart. But then suddenly Suien appeared on top of the bird, a sword made of water stabbing forwards, spearing San clear through the heart. The man stiffened but just as with Ni, I knew that even such a mortal wound wouldn't be immediately fatal as long as his body was connected to his summons. I wanted to shout my discovery to Suien, but San was still urging the owl-eagle forwards and every muscle in my body was straining to keep myself from being drawn and quartered as I anchored myself to the rock wall.
Thankfully, Suien had once been one of Taki's most prized jōnin and he quickly came to the same conclusion I did. Summoning another sword of water, he swung both in a low arc, catching San right above the hips. The man's eyes widened, but with his throat being crushed and with a massive hole in his heart, he wasn't exactly in the best position to defend himself and the watery swords parted flesh with ease. With a disgusting squelching side, San's torso tore itself free from the back of his summons, the eagle-owl, now suddenly no longer held back, exploding forwards in a burst of speed, slamming itself straight into the opposite cliff face, going up in the largest fireball yet.
This explosion was large enough to actually collapse part of the mountain itself, and for a moment I thought Suien had been caught in the explosion, but then the man reappeared next to me in a Body Flicker, breathing hard.
And he splashed me with the residual water of his technique. Bastard. Not that I had the time to deal with the man's pettiness as I coiled the whip upwards, San's barely alive body still clutched in its coils. With a sudden pull of my arm, I tore the whip downwards, the leather following suit, speeding up in a sharp arc before the tip slammed heavily into the cliff face, rocks exploding outwards, the sound of shattering bones unmistakable. The whip uncoiled and San's now limb body tumbled helplessly to the ruined battlefield below.
The battle there seemed to be rounding up as well. Ni's large beast was being driven to the edge of the large square in front of her now shattered gate, a charred corpse showing what had happened to its wielder. In a pincer movement, the ANBU unleashed several elemental jutsu that target both the beasts head and tail, forcing it to turn as it tried to take lumbering swipes at its attackers. This left its side exposed as it stood over the steep drop towards the first gate far down below at the base of the mountain. An instinctive move, but a mistake that both Legendary Brothers exploited, ramming their shoulders into its ribs and sending it flying over the edge. It tried to scrabble at the shattered tiles of the arena, but its own weight was its downfall as its massive claws found no purchase and with a deep, trembling roar it hurtled downwards, out of sight.
It actually took several long seconds before an earth-shaking impact rattled the base of the mountain, sending up a plume of dust that even crested the edge of the ravine.
The battle against Hiruko's henchmen was finished. Looking from the missing nin besides me to the gathering ANBU below, I reckoned that the war wasn't yet won. Just to be on the safe side I quickly layer a Henge over myself, returning my altered appearance to that of the canon Mizuki.
"C'mon, let's say hello." I say idly towards the panting Suien.
The man had pulled off multiple elemental jutsu, some of a quite high level too, not to mention the multiple body flickers mid-combat. Not that the Body Flicker is an especially draining technique by itself, but moving at that speed still puts a noticeable strain on the body, especially when you're not just moving in a straight line, but actively trying not to run face-first into your opponent's kunai.
Suien glares at my suggestion, clearly thinking me mad or soft, but his own exhaustion is working against him. He doesn't fancy his chances on taking on a whole ANBU squad as he is right now.
"You think you can weasel your way out of this? Aren't you a wanted Konoha missing nin yourself?" he growls, glancing at the ANBU with some slight apprehension.
"True, but as long as we're talking, they're not trying to kill us." I point out, and the Taki jōnin scoffs dismissively.
"Sure. They'll just try to arrest us so they can kill us later." He grunts and all I can do is shrug.
"It buys us time." I counter and that seems to be enough to convince Suien as he gives me a reluctant nod.
We cut the chakra to our feet, easily abseiling down the sheer rocky surface, before landing roughly on the shattered ground below, the ruined remains of the second gate at our back as we cautiously approach the cluster of ANBU operatives standing in the middle of the white-tailed square.
Tsubaki moves to our side and the Legendary Idiot Brothers jog over as well, completely unbothered with the presence of the ANBU as they push through the crowd with their heavy bulk. I can see several of the special agents shoot each other incredulous looks through their masks even as they close ranks, but my focus is on the man in front, a familiar mask glaring back at me.
"Hello Tiger. Fancy meeting you here." I say as my group comes to a halt a little distance away from the tense ANBU captain.
"Oniyuri Mizuki." The man's voice as cold and unyielding as stone, revealing nothing of his emotions or motivations.
'Ouch. Tough crowd.' I wince a bit at the reaction, trying to keep things moving along.
"How come you picked up our trail so fast? It's not even been a month since I esc-… left your care." I ask, genuinely curious.
My entire party tenses when Tiger doesn't say a word, simply reaching into his grey flack vest, though I'm surprised when all he pulls out is a single wad of paper. He unfolds it with sharp, almost frustrated movements, before positively shoving it underneath my nose.
"Care to tell me why the Konoha Strict Correctional Facility suddenly got an invoice on its desk for half a million ryo from some little hamlet the warden had never even heard of before?" he snaps and my eyes widen as I recognize my own writing and with a start I'm looking at the same IOU I had written for the poor village elder whose foods stores we had plundered before running into Suien.
"Hehe, call it travel expenses? Done in service of the greater good for Konoha? Surely you're familiar with living off the land during your own missions, right?" I try with an awkward smile and Tiger is completely silent and motionless for a long moment as he just stares at me.
"That may be true for Konoha nin on officially sanctioned missions for the village. Not for escaped inmates on the run." His tone comes out short and clipped as I desperately try to find a loophole in his words.
"Ah, look at it as a civilian initiative then, an act of goodwill for the betterment of Konoha as a whole! It might not have been an official mission sanctioned by the Hokage himself, but I saw it as my solemn duty, if not as a Konoha shinobi, then at the very least as a Konoha civilian, to target potential allies of that traitor Orochimaru!" I quickly elaborate and I can feel Suien stiffen at my side.
Even as tired as he is, even when faced with a full ANBU combat squad (minus a couple of casualties I can't help but notice), the jōnin immediately clocks that this is not the same story I told him when we first met.
"Your… 'solemn duty'?" a bear-masked ANBU at Tiger's side asks incredulously.
"Yep!" I say brightly, as I hold up the burlap sack that I had tied to my waistband, letting it unfurl.
A ripple of unease spreads through the assembled ANBU as Hiruko's head flops out, falling towards the shattered white tiles below with a wet slap. I bend down, grab the head by the hear and toss it towards Tiger who snatches it out of the air with the distinct look of a man not willing to glance down in order to desperately preserve some semblance of blessed ignorance as to what he had just stepped in.
"Hiruko of the Chimera Technique. Exiled from Konoha by order of Sarutobi Hiruzen himself, staunch ally to the other arch traitor Orochimaru of the Sannin." I explain easily and I see Suien relax somewhat as he lets out an impressed whistle.
"You actually got the fucker? Damn Mizuki, didn't think you had it in you." He says in surprise and I can see how Tiger's eyes snap towards the other missing nin.
"And who is this then, Mizuki?"
"Yet another civilian initiative! You see, Taki are Konoha's allies, but Suien here has been very naughty, planning a coup and thus trying to undermine our Village power by proxy. To go against our ancient alliance like that is especially dangerous in these uncertain times, considering how Taki forms a significant buffer alongside our Northern border against unchecked Iwa aggression." I explain with a flourish, as I clasp Suien's shoulder in a friendly gesture.
It takes only half a heartbeat for the words to fully register with the treacherous Taki ninja.
"Mizuki, you double-crossing fuck-!"
Already Suien's chakra is spiking as he tries to wrench himself from my grip, but three things work against him. He's exhausted, he has consistently underestimated the old me for the entire time I've known him and now, he's facing the new me. My clawed hand clenches tightly, digging into his shoulder as I keep him in place, my leg shooting out and catching him hard in the back of the knee. Suien's leg collapses underneath him as he falls to a knee, but despite my sudden (but inevitable) betrayal, his arms are already coming up to form handseals.
Not that I let him, my other hand coming up in a brutal short movement, my knuckles slamming right into the soft part of his temple with tremendous force and Suien's whole body goes slack, only held upright by my iron grip on his shoulder.
The sudden violence startles even the ANBU and as I look up, I can see that several have moved back several paces, several of them having unsheathed kunai and tanto. Tiger is absolutely motionless however, those dark eyeholes in his mask focused unerringly on my face and I feel just as nervous underneath his inscrutable gaze as when he had first interrogated me.
Lifting the unconscious Suien up by his shoulder, I extend him towards the ANBU captain, grin large on my face.
"But thanks to me, we can now offer Taki a great gift by returning their missing nin to them, thus further the bond of alliance between our villages! Now tell me Tiger, between these two presents, which I obtained entirely on my own merits and initiative for the betterment of Konoha, I will remind you, doesn't that erase my debt to society?" I try, hopefully not letting my desperation leak through my voice as I hold up my gamble.
For a very long moment, nobody speaks, nobody even dares to move, not even Fujin and Raijin as Tiger just keeps staring at me. I don't even realize I'm holding my breath until my chest begins to hurt, but then finally the man moves.
By pinching his mask over the bridge of his nose, ruefully shaking his head.
"Goddammit, Oniyuri…" he grumbles in a defeated tone and I can't help but let hope bloom in my chest.
Thinking back to my interrogation, I can almost anticipate the captain's next words as he looks back up at me again, voice once again clipped and cold.
"Elaborate."
//
AN: Meh. For some reason, I'm just not really as happy with this chapter as the previous one, but I can't put my finger on why.
Also, looking into sealing scrolls led me a bit down a rabbit hole as apparently, there have been various debates online on whether or not sealing scrolls as most of us know them are actually fanon or not. Sealing things like jutsu and chakra is well-established in canon, but there's various opinions on whether or not storing items inside a scroll counts as canon as well. After looking through it, I'm of the opinion that there's enough direct and indirect evidence in the manga and the anime that says that storing physical items should be possible.