Part Fourteen:

Ninja

Shino didn't hear anyone enter the kitchen, but rather felt them. Spinning around, she was surprised by the ninja's speed as he lunged for her. She was unaware of her own movement as self defense reflexively took over, making her reach out for the nearest weapon. A gleam of silver flashed before her eyes just as a sharp pain exploded in her left shoulder. She and the ninja uttered simultaneous shouts of agony.

For a second, as she breathed in gasps from the throbbing in her shoulder, they stood staring at each other and she thought she had missed. However, a trickle of blood suddenly ran down his forehead and into his eyes before he crumpled to the floor. He had hit her with something very hard and blunt, but for all his swift movements, he hadn't been able to avoid a wok to the head.

Shino bent to pick up her frying pan in case she had to use it again. Her left arm ached and felt uselessly heavy. Glancing down at the unconscious man, she saw a small ring on his middle finger equipped with a small wooden notch for hitting pressure points. Cursing him, she seized an additional weapon before leaving the kitchen – the knife she used for cutting eel.

In the guestroom, Fuu and Yatsuha were having their own problems.

Yatsuha was fighting hand to hand with a ninja who had jumped through the window seconds before. She punctuated each strike with a sharp exclamation and dodged his every move.

Fuu, on the other hand, was currently wrestling with another man who had stopped her as she tried to run out of the room. He held her wrist with one hand and the fingers of the other were tugging at the sideways knot of her hair to pull her head back. Unable to break his grip, she was forced against a wall.

"Where is the samurai?" shouted her subjugator to the man fighting Yatsuha.

"I'm busy!" the other ninja replied angrily as he avoided Yatsuha's speeding fist.

"Let me go!" Fuu cried irately, but he fiercely jerked her head backwards by her hair and she grunted in pain.

A split second later she squeaked in fright as the other ninja's face suddenly appeared next to hers, smashing into the wall. Yatsuha had spun around and hit him in the head with the back of her raised elbow. His eyes rolled back and he slid to the floor in a heap.

Fuu's captor called Yatsuha a rude name and she felt his fingers release her hair and fumble at his side. Thinking fast, she mule-kicked him in the groin before he could draw his weapon and he released her wrist at last.

Yatsuha grabbed the knife he was reaching for and slashed him across the face with it. He tumbled to his knees, howling, and Fuu clutched at the wall to keep herself from joining him on the floor.

"Ahh!" she exclaimed as another set of fingers suddenly wrapped around her upper arm.

But it was only Yatsuha trying to get her to move. "Hurry!" snapped the kunoichi. "Let's get out of here."

Fuu followed her into the hall where they found four more ninjas skulking around the other doors. "Crap," muttered Yatsuha as all four of them looked around at the two women.

Fuu held back a whimper of terror as they advanced and she unsheathed her little pink-handled blade for protection. Yatsuha made a fighting stance, nearly lost her balance, and frowned down at her legs which were being restrained by the long fabric of her kimono. Rather than waist time fumbling to loosen her obi, she used the borrowed knife in her hand to slice open the right side of her kimono from thigh to ankle.

"There," she said, making a successful stance this time and revealing her shapely leg in the process. "Bring it on, you bastard shinobi wannabes."

And they did. Despite her skill, her swiftness, and her fury, Yatsuha was having a hard time fighting them all on her own. Afraid of getting in the way of the multiple ninjaken spinning about the narrow space and already forced into a squatting position to avoid being hit by shuriken, Fuu hesitated. It was nearly impossible to find an opening in the fray and she didn't know exactly what to do once she saw one. She hadn't been in this much danger since being cornered on a cliff by the Hand of God, and then both Mugen and Jin had almost died.

She cursed herself for not learning from her mistakes and getting some lessons in combat.

"Fuu!" shouted someone from the other end of the hall.

Fuu peered between the five pairs of shuffling, shifting legs and saw Shino standing at the mouth of the sitting room looking stricken. "Fuu," she called again, "where are you?"

As the young woman opened her mouth to yell back, she was cut short by a man falling dead at her feet. "AIEE!"

She whirled, wide-eyed, and saw Yatsuha kick another ninja in the face, smashing his nose flat.

"Go with her!" Yatsuha shouted urgently. "You two get out!"

Blood was dripping off of her from somewhere, but Fuu couldn't tell where. "What about…"

"Just do it, will ya!"

Fuu nodded and rapidly gathered up her courage before darting by the fight to where Shino was frantically motioning for her to hurry. She had a strange bowl-shaped frying pan in her hand, but Fuu didn't really care to ask what it was at that moment. Together, they darted to the front door, where they were quickly halted by three more men. Each man held a deadly weapon toward them and advanced assuredly.

"Evening, ladies," one said with a nasty sneer.

Shino took a shuddering breath beside Fuu and suddenly screamed: "JIN!"

The desperate voice carried into the garden, where two black shapes were sweeping over the landscape, moving so fast it was impossible to tell one from the other as they fought. Swords – one a katana, the other a ninjato – thrashed against each other, ringing in protest as the fight abruptly became more insistent. With a resounding clang the ninjato flew into the air away from its master's grip. Lit by the moon above, the katana bit savagely across the assassin's midriff. The wounded man slumped against a tree and before he could make another move, his opponent had snatched the ninjato out of nowhere as it fell from the sky and pinned him to the trunk by his bicep.

Jin left the man there and sped toward the house, vaguely registering that someone was fighting on his roof, before being intercepted by yet another ninja.

"Where you running to, samurai?" jeered the man.

Jin frowned at him and they squared off.

"Wherever it was, you're not gonna make it," the ninja continued overconfidently.

They lunged – or rather, Jin did while the ninja merely acted like he would. He flung two small, oddly-shaped objects to the ground and an explosion of sparks blinded the samurai.