Arc Two, Lost Mission; Chapter Eight, Reunited
Tetsuko was rather proud of his temperament most of the time, but as he walked with Yasuo, 'Akio', and Hisao he was positively fuming. Not only had that - that - Azami - abandoned them, he had been forced to decide alone what to do about that. He'd only seen one possibility from the first, admittedly. Hunting down Azami, who had either abandoned them or betrayed them, would look very suspicious and potentially blow their cover. The only reason the decision had been left to 'Isao' was that he had slept in later than the rest and nobody really wanted to be the one to take the blame that would come with either decision. As annoying and confusing as it might be that Chai had disappeared suddenly, only Kentsu genuinely seemed to think they should search. He stayed quiet and stuck to slightly betrayed looks, annoying the hell out of Tetsuko by trying for some guilt.
There was a moment, right before the sand opened, where a sudden twist in his gut reminded Tetsuko that this could be a trap, Azami could have been working with these people... He breathed in while counting to four, held it for seven, and exhaled for eight seconds. There was no time for panicking. Yasuo entered first, and the others followed. Tetsuko fell to the back, and Akio turned to look at him for a moment before stretching his arms, up, surreptitiously putting in ear plugs. Nobody seemed to notice, and Tetsuko took out his flute.
"What's that?" Hisao asked when the music began, stopping and trying to turn her head. Inexplicably, she found she couldn't move, and her vision began to blur. Yasuo was not as easily taken out, recognizing genjutsu as soon as it seized her and releasing herself.
"What are you-?" She asked, anger and puzzlement evident. Kentsu knocked her out and, releasing their disguises, the two armed themselves and raced in. They didn't quite know where to go, but they hoped to find someone from the previous fight to confront.
Beating the answers out of someone sounded nice in theory, but Tetsuko felt rather doubtful. This whole bit was rather foolhardy, especially considering the first few enemies were all unfamiliar and it had always been questionable whether this was even the right place - Mokuren had broken into wherever she was now, with no time for planning, and that meant either she had been incredibly lucky, there was another entrance, or this was the wrong place altogether.
Two more enemies rushed them, and Tetsuko was fairly certain the alarm had been sounded on their attack.
Anesthesia, Mokuren registered, uncertain why that word had come to mind. Staring up at sandstone, she contemplated meaningless things like the size an ant would have to be to make tunnels this big, and whether or not sand puppies were actually happy - what would make a sand puppy unhappy? Something awfully mean, because they were adorable in their own freaky way.
"Mei, are you alright?" Someone asked, startling her. She hadn't noticed, but Zoruna Ryuu was in a chair beside her - bed? No, this bed wasn't hers, it was comfy but the sheets were white and she had always preferred darker colored blankets. Mei had shared the sentiment, come to think of it.
"I don't know." She mumbled, her voice sounding odd to her own ears. "Why...?" Uncertain what to ask first, Mokuren stopped there and tried to focus. Much of her body felt numb, and although she had a feeling that should upset her, it didn't, really. She couldn't smell much either, and her ears weren't fully operational. Her eyes worked well enough, but things were admittedly a little blurry. She could sense Zoruna's energy beside here, and Ayano's somewhere nearby... there were others, not as many as she would expect, and she couldn't recognize them. One seemed almost like Tetsuko's, but that wasn't very likely.
Or... yes, it was. As memories flooded in, Mokuren attempted to sit up. Pain shot up her body, coming from both legs despite the drugs in her system. She could see that they were propped up and wrapped tightly, now that she had lifted her head. Zoruna gently pushed her back down. "Don't strain yourself." He insisted.
Mokuren wondered how her injuries had been explained, and if it would even be worth it to try and keep up the farce. Her teammates were in the compound - she could sense both of them, not as clearly as she would have liked, and while they were heading in the wrong direction they did seem stronger and she wondered if they would manage to rescue her. She could sense a fair few other people as well, none of whom seemed overly familiar, and she hoped Tetsuko and Kentsu hadn't come alone. She wasn't in a state to walk out, after all.
She pretended not to hear the little voice that pointed out that if she had just trusted them when she first sensed them heading towards the Zoruna compound and not attempted to escape and been caught, they could have been on their way out by now.
Several weeks previous, a blonde woman had woken up to find herself bandaged up in a house in the Land of Rivers. It was the home of a tall, lanky dark-haired man named Katsuo, and he was not by any means a medical expert but he insisted she stay and rest while he tried to find someone to tend to her. Groggy and unfocused, without clear memory of what her mind was urging her to go and do regardless of her health, Temari had agreed and fallen asleep.
She had been comatose for a while, the green-haired boy told her, not giving an exact number of days. She was still in Katsuo's house, and, unsure of his identity, Temari had been unwilling to answer any of the boy's questions and resistant to treatment; looking back she suspected he had knocked her out, but when she had woken up and found she could move again it was worth overlooking. He had left already; Katsuo mentioned something about debt and being chased out, but it hadn't been important at the time. Her team, she remembered at last, needed her. With any luck they had also been taken in somewhere along Kawa's border - Katsuo helped her look, starting with the place she had been found. It took some time to obtain a map and see how far she had been blown, and she had left the Land of Rivers almost immediately, heading towards the town their mission had centered around. She had every intention of searching that area after sending a summoned weasel with a message to her brother, but had unfortunately been sidetracked.
Eventually, though, she had ran across an idiot with a photo - Zoruna Mei, he had insisted, was the name of the girl, and she had died a long time before, but her resemblance to Mokuren was uncanny and had to be investigated. It was much more of a lead than she had gotten til then. Obtaining the location of the girl's home had been difficult - the first place was clearly abandoned and had been for years, and the second seemed to be in an underground cave network. There were few maps of those tunnels, and guides seemed unaware of anyone living down there. The ceiling had collapsed in one area in recent years, and lead up into the surface again. Searching around that area, Temari had found remnants of a campsite and her summons confirmed that her team had been here within the last couple of days but had left in a hurry. There had been a stranger with them, and Temari hoped they were alright. They couldn't be far, but her summons lead her to an empty area of sand where they claimed the trail ended. Frustrated, it took her a few minutes to remember the underground.
Hearing Kentsu swear, Tetsuko turned around. Neiro had pinned him and held a kunai to his throat - a familiar situation, this. Neiro barely had the chance to smirk before the earth shook violently, the ceiling dropping dust - Kentsu took advantage of the moment's surprise and reversed the situation. "Where's Mokuren?" He demanded.
Struggling, Neiro didn't answer. Kentsu pressed the blade until blood welled up around the tip. "Where?"
"Doesn't matter," he rasped in response, sneering.
"Up the stairs, the second door on the left." A woman's voice answered from the doorway. Ayano's eyes were listless, her arms wrapped around herself. "She's injured, and I don't know what that was - an attack, possibly. You've not much luck." She chuckled dryly.
Neither boy was in the mood for her nonsense; Kentsu knocked Neiro out with a quick blow to the head and the two hurried the way Ayano indicated, choosing to trust her. The door was already open, and they looked through with some trepidation - much of the ceiling had fallen in here, but more shocking than the natural light was the dead body on the floor, and their sensei, Temari, who was pulling Mokuren out from under the sand. The younger kunoichi was crying slightly, blood seeping through the bandages on her legs.
"Tetsuko, Kentsu." Temari said, relieved. Frozen in the doorway, Kentsu took a moment to figure out whether or not he was hallucinating... and then he hurried over and pinched his teacher before hugging her, careful not to get between her and Mokuren.
"Where have you been?" He tried to ask, but all that came out was a kind of croak.
With some difficulty, they got Mokuren out. She passed out at some point, and didn't wake up until they had managed to rig something to carry her on the back of one of Temari's largest weasels.
"I'm sorry, Kentsu... Tetsuko." She mumbled, only half awake, upon seeing their faces.
"Sorry for what?" Tetsuko asked with a weak laugh. She just shook her head.
End Notes: It seemed in the show that much of the time, a summoning scroll linked you to a whole genus/species rather than to one individual animal and so for this I have assumed Kamatari is not Temari's only summoned weasel.
Things are left kind of vague, but rest assured they will be cleared. Sorry...