Gaara wondered how successful Yamato's mission was. The Leaf ANBU had been on radio silence for close to a day and a half. Has Yamato even found the Feudal Lord of the Land of Rivers?
The underground labyrinth, with its war room somewhere near the center, was rumored to extend all the way to a network of remote patrol stations, ten to twenty-five kilometers in any direction. Confirming this was considered beyond the scope of necessity for this mission, but now Gaara couldn't help but wonder if he'd given Yamato a task too large for a single ninja to handle.
He spotted Baki returning from his negotiations with the Feudal Lord-in-waiting, and the man looked angry. Over the years Gaara had witnessed a variety of expressions from the typically reserved counsellor, but mad had never been one of them.
"Baki, what happened?" Gaara asked with a note of purposeful disinterest.
"They treated the honor of Feudal Lord as if they unexpectedly won a lottery! Ishin very well could make a fine daimyo, but he does not have a single able counsellor. When they taste of their power, they will fall into self-servility. Without men to instruct Ishin on wise and honorable rule, he too will fall in time into the depravities of his cohorts."
"What, then, do you suggest?" Gaara questioned coldly.
"The cares of the peasant are different from the concerns of the ninja. Perhaps we never should have gotten involved. But for now Ishin expects us to give him the Feudal Lordship. In eight hours he will claim it publicly," Baki stated. His answer was distant, making Gaara wonder what he wasn't saying.
A hundred meters away, one of the dissidents screamed out in pain. "What now?" Baki sighed as he and Gaara rushed toward the cry.
Shikamaru gazed at the nearly cloudless sky - after all, clouds are made of water, which is rather scare in the Land of Wind. He tried to imagine how the thieves might try to take Temari. From he'd seen so far, they probably wouldn't be able to do it be force. Then again, they had infiltrated Sunagakure rather easily.
He sighed lightly as he reminded himself that determining the plan was only half the battle. Temari was not the kind of girl to follow someone else's plan. "Troublesome woman," he muttered.
Temari appeared standing over his head. "You called for me, crybaby?" she said with a smile.
"How gullible is your cousin?" Shikamaru asked as his eyes met hers.
"As I said, he's a ninja dropout. Upper level genin at best. He's got a good head on his shoulders though, and I'd like to keep it there if we can."
"How well can he see through deception? I don't care about his fighting skills," Shikamaru clarified a bit more tersely than he would have liked.
"Remember Naruto's first time in the Chuunin exams? He isn't great, but don't underestimate him, either."
Shikamaru's thoughts drifted to Chouji and Ino, then to Matsuri and Sari. "Body doubles," he told himself.
"Well the real one is leaving. Let me know before you do anything extravagant . . . oh wait, I forgot who I was talking to," she said with a wry smile. "I know you're not the extravagant type."
Shikamaru propped himself up with his elbows and scoffed. "It can't be helped; time for some prep work."
As the two turned to go their separate ways, a barrage of kunai flew toward them. "Incoming!" Shikamaru shouted, but Temari was already a step ahead, swinging her fan through the air.
A gruff voice called out, "Ah, good. I've been waiting for you, my dear." A flaming chakra tiger sprinted toward Temari. "Are you ready to come?"
"Like hell!" Temari screamed, throwing a smoke bomb to the ground and looking for Shikamaru.
Through the smoke a dozen shadow tentacles pierced the tiger and immobilized it. In a few brief moments the beast lost its energy and dissipated.
Shikamaru's shadow surged forward once again, seeking their opponent.
From a distance, Shuhaka mocked, "That's all the farther your power goes? I guess I'll have to put you out of your misery quickly."
Shikamaru threw a trench knife to Temari. "Just get it close to him," he instructed.
She tossed it into the air and swung her fan, propelling the knife with the speed of an arrow into the distance.
Shikamaru disappeared in another puff of smoke, and Temari decided to set off several more smoke bombs. Grasping a pair of kunai, she ran forward through the smoke cloud, ready to show her opponent the force of a Suna Jonin's taijutsu.
"Lord Senrai," the ninja began with an inflection in his voice, hoping that the man in front of him would confirm or deny his presumed identity, "are you OK?"
The man was bound and blindfolded and scared out of his wits. He erratically shook his head up and down. When his blindfold was removed, he clearly saw the ninja crouching over him - his savior.
"Y-Y-Y-You-You're not Kehai. Wh-Who are you?"
"No, my lord, I'm not. But," the ninja motioned toward a slumped body just two meters from them, "I believe that was Kehai. I don't have time to explain, but follow me. The men who killed him are only saving you for later."
With that, the ninja grabbed either side of Senrai's collar and pulled him to his feet.
"Who are you? Where are we going?"
The sound of footsteps - men running in boots, lots of men in boots - was coming toward them.
Senrai asked worriedly, "Those aren't my men, are they?"
"We don't have time for this. Now come!" the ninja demanded, then ran toward what Senrai assumed would be their way of escape.
The two dashed across the large, poorly lit room, then down a maze of corridors. At first the rushing footsteps seemed to be catching them, but after more turns than Senrai had bothered to count, he could barely hear them any longer. As the two paused near the end of a hallway, Senrai took the opportunity to ask again where they were heading.
The ninja replied, "We're going to the surface to get some things straight."
"Thank you for saving my life back there," Senrai said with genuine gratitude.
His savior just replied, "It might be premature to thank me." He paused for a moment, then pulled out a small map. "Which outpost is closest to these coordinates and how do we get there from here?"
As Senrai traced the route, he realized that they were going to do lots of running. "That's a total of over nine kilometers," he said, hoping that the ninja would realize that's a long distance for a feudal lord to run.
"If you don't make it there, they will kill you," the ninja reminded him matter-of-factly. At least we'll give you a choice, he thought to himself.
They continued toward the station, knowing but not saying that they would likely face the opposition before they made it to the surface. After perhaps ten minutes, Yamato stopped abruptly at a corner in the hallway and motioned for the Feudal Lord to stop and remain quiet. At the right time they slipped past the corridor stealthily.
Yamato expected them to easily continue on their way unimpeded; instead, the saying "never count on a stranger" was given a case in point. As Senrai walked past the corridor, he recognized several of his former soldiers.
"Roiyaru!" he gasped.
Yamato instinctively pulled the man away from the corridor. He drew a kunai as well as several shuriken.
The squad of soldiers spun around to see who'd spoken. "Find and capture that man!" Roiyaru ordered.
Yamato created an earthen wall to keep some time and distance between themselves and the soldiers, then pushed Senrai to start running in front of him.
"I can't believe my own nephew has turned against me! What have I even done wrong?" Senrai exclaimed.
"You're not the strong-willed ruler that such men expect. You need to be the ruler that they need or someone else will rise to the occasion," Yamato answered coldly.
As they turned a corner, the percussion of an explosion hit them from behind. Apparently the men breached the barricade.
Lord Senrai turned back toward the corner to take a last look, and a kunai flew directly in front of his face. Yamato pulled him by the shirt away from the danger yet again. He set a series of earth and wood barriers along the corridor behind them, hoping to at least slow their pursuers.
The pair somehow managed to traverse more than four kilometers without a single direct confrontation. Senrai doubled over for a moment, catching his breath.
Yamato pondered briefly if he had made a mistake in saving the life of the man he'd been sent to kill. Well, officially he hadn't been sent to kill him, only to track him and prepare a passageway so that the Kazekage along with Kankuro might kill him and install a new feudal lord. But how quickly the situation changes.
Perhaps the man next to him would prove to be more of an asset, realizing who saved him and how little security he really has. Or maybe he's just an idealistic old man who doesn't know how to command a nation. Up close it was hard to know for certain.
Yamato noticed a cold feeling creeping up his leg. He tried to jump out of the way and realized he couldn't. A face appeared in the floor just in front of him. It looked familiar yet foreign. He assumed this ninja must be a relative of the stone ninja he'd faced earlier.
A disembodied leg kicked at Yamato from the side wall. The ninja was still holding Yamato's feet securely in stone, but Yamato was able to block the first kick and duck under the roundhouse that followed it. Turning toward the kick, he pulled a kunai from his equipment pouch and stabbed the leg just above the ankle. The ninja screamed - more in shock than actual pain - but refused to loosen his grip on Yamato's feet.
Next Yamato used his wood release technique to break through the stone that secured his feet. The stone ninja made the corridor walls constrict, attempting to separate the Feudal Lord from his escort. Yamato pulled Senrai toward him, not even noticing the words the man was speaking. He made the hand seals for a domed wall inside the corridor to keep it from collapsing and separating them. Unfortunately both men were still vulnerable from below, and their enemy was presumably still in the floor.
"Ugh!" Senrai gasped as a kunai cut across the back of his knee. The Feudal Lord fell to the ground, holding his bleeding leg.
"My lord, we need to get out of here now. Forgive me for-" Senrai heard his savior ninja say to him before something stole his consciousness from him.
Yamato had seen the smoke bomb fly toward them and had taken one final breath. Whatever was in the smoke, he knew better than to breathe it willingly.
"Hand over the unconscious Feudal Lord and I may allow you to escape. I don't really care who you are, my mission is only to take him," the stone ninja said, just beyond the reach of Yamato's kunai.
"You'll have to kill us both," Yamato scoffed.
"I can, but I'd prefer to be diplomatic. He's a little more useful alive than dead. Isn't your life worth it, too?" the stone ninja sneered. He threw a couple shuriken down the corridor. Yamato dodged one that was close to him, only to realize that the ninja's purpose had been to disable the lights, not to attack.
Yamato formed two wood clones simultaneously. One charged down the corridor toward his opponent. The second performed a wood transformation into the unconscious Senrai. Meanwhile the real Yamato pulled the man unto his shoulders and performed a water release to flood the passageway. One of his clones made the wooden dome open upward, breaking through the ceiling. A giant crash of water and stones merged with the flooded corridor.
Unaware of his opponent's whereabouts, Yamato swam to the surface carrying Lord Senrai. Strangely, not a single attack occurred during the swim or as they reached what used to be the edge of the river, now more of a disfigured lake. There was no time to waste; Yamato checked his supplies and his still unconscious and still breathing partner, repacked them and headed north along the river.
As they reached a particularly rocky section, a trio of kunai flew at them from the tree line on the opposite side of the river. Yamato dodged them, but as he turned, he felt the blood still flowing from the Feudal Lord's earlier injury. He needed first aid soon or this entire escape would be for nothing. Yamato laid him as securely as possible in a nearby tree.
Sharp stalagmites shot from the ground under and around Yamato. He nimbly jumped above them before being skewered alive. In mid air he threw a kunai connected to a length of wire, which wrapped around a tree bough. He swung to safety away from the stalagmites, but narrowly missed some quickly thrown shuriken that sunk deep into the tree.
"Who are you fighting for?" Yamato shouted, asking to determine his opponent's location as much as his motivaton.
"The future Daimyo of Rivers, who else?" the ninja replied. He was standing in an opening in the woods twenty meters from Yamato.
Yamato threw a few kunai intentionally high to keep the ninja from jumping, then performed his wood release: binding nest. The ninja screamed as the wood constricted around him and pulled him into the ground. Then, in a puff of smoke, he crumbled. An earthen clone.