Mother had handed us a mission that was a C rank! Despite my and Hisashi Chūnin rank, Our Sensei purposely choose the D ranked missions, the only exception was when mother personally wanted us to handle certain missions. An example is the mission to greet the visitors from the outside.
My excitement for the mission overclouded the thought of how our Sensei acted a little while ago. It was very unprofessional of him but we couldn't do much about it as he was our Sensei. Shiori has been very grumpy towards Makoto Sensei and Hisashi didn't understand a thing why it was like that tense between them. On top of that, Hisashi was upset about the sudden death of Atsushi. He wasn't sad that he was dead, he was rather mad that the doctor disappeared without giving us "answers" I wasn't sure what he was babbling about before the mission but I agreed to discuss with him after the mission.
"Remember, we are just going to subdue the land sharks and scare them away from our tunnel path way system and the village. Don't kill the creatures unless needed to" landsharks had been digging too close to our village and it could make chaos if we didn't drove them away. We weren't sure why they had started to dig their way up to us.
Mother also decided that there were more people needed for our mission so team Gemini and Omi had joined us. Team Gemini included Nobuo, Kohaku, Naiya. Their Sensei Junichi, didn't join this mission because mother thought that Makoto Sensei would be enough.
Kohaku was speaking with Shiori about plans and tactics. Shiori was surprisingly indulge in the conversations he had the blue eyed girl. I wanted to join in and share my ideas and thoughts but I didn't not want to disturb them. Shiori has been very silent since the attack of the orphanage, and had went back to her quite old self. I wanted turn her back by letting her be comfortable and not "take over" the conversation and feeling left out. I noticed that Shiori's sword was nowhere to be seen. I thought it was odd for her to not bring her sword in such an important mission.
"We could go to the furthest part of the tunnels, let you mark it and when we search for the landsharks, we just teleport them there!"
"Do you you know how fast I will run out of chakra if we use that plan?"
"Do you know how much chakra reserve I have that I can provide you?" It was a bit humorous to listen to them arguing. We ended up with going with Kohaku's plan. Searching for the monsters wasn't hard either, as Makoto Sensei was a earth style specialist. He just needed to touch the tunnel walls and he could sense the surrounding area! He could only sense in a certain radius however. If the landsharks were too far away, then we would feel the ground shaking, revealing their location.
"Alright we should be close to one of them soon-" the earth wall on the side in front of us got destroyed by a land shark who was digging. It had gotten his sight on us and examined us. It was a gigantic shark with canine limbs with thick paws that was equipped with sharp claws that help with their digging. The creature was big enough to cover the road in the tunnel.
"Stick to the plan kids! Stun and distract the landsharks while Shiori finds an opening to teleport them away-" another crash from the wall appeared again, but that time it was close to us. Another landsharks had appeared and had our Sensei hostage in its mouth. The creature had carried out Sensei like a stick.
"I-it's alright kid. Go back to Yama-" Makoto Sensei could finish his sentence before his capture continued digging away.
"Makoto Sensei!" The other landsharks that blocked us started to charge at us with full speed, roaring so it made the tunnel tremble.
"Turn back!"
"But then we are leading it closer to the village!" I argued against Naiya and she realized her mistake. She examined as the creature ran towards us clumsily. She pointed at the hole the other monster came from gesturing that we should use it as escape. We had no other choice but to ran inside the unknown tunnel. We blindly ran forward further in to the tunnel a It got darker and darker.
"Fire style: Fox Fire!" Orbs of Fire surrounded Shiori and she hovered the fire orbs above her, letting her act as a beacon to lead us. Even if we had a little start advantage against the chasing monster, it quickly caught up to us and we could hear its loud "steps". Kohaku had conveniently found another another tunnel up in the ceiling. We stopped right beneath the tunnel and waited for the creature to come closer.
"Remind me why we are stopping?!"
"If we rush in now then the landsharks knows were we are headed. We have to feint them" Hisashi explained to Nobuo who was uncertain about our plan. We waited as it came closer and closer.
"Omi!"
"I'm on it!" They creates two long spears that was way longer than any of us. They handed the other spear to Shiori and both of them ran towards the landshark! They stabbed the monsters eyes, making it stop and roar in pain. Shiori and Omi took the opportunity to hover themselves up in to the tunnel above.
"Let's go!" We followed suit and jumped up to the tunnel and proceed to run up the wall. The creature lost track of us but we still ran so we could get far away from it.
The tunnel was longer than thought and Shiori's Fire orbs started to fade out. Keeping a consistent chakra control on your feet, as well as keeping a jutsu active must have drained her.
I quickly made my way to my comrade but Kohaku was already there before me.
"Don't worry Shiori. I provide you chakra!" She put her hands on Shiori's back and pushed her forward, giving her more chakra and kept her running at the same time.
We kept running without problems, until we finally came to an end of the current tunnel, and got greeted with another tunnel with a greater darkness. I could hear by our footstep that the tunnel was bigger than the previous ones.
"Kohaku. Help me give Shiori the amount of chakra so she can lit up the tunnel" me and the red haired girl put our hands on Shiori's shoulder and she made the fire orbs bigger, lighting up the tunnel who appeared to be gigantic.
Naiya immediately questioned the size of the tunnel and stated that it was impossible to be dug without mechanical aid. The Uzumaki girl walked over to the wall of the tunnel as Shiori decreased the size of her fire orb. Kohaku examines the walls and came up with a conclusion.
"These scratch marks on the wall is the same as the ones one the other tunnels. This mean that's the landshark we saw before was just… children"
"The full grown landsharks are huge! Do we even stand a chance against it?! We need to go back and report to lord Yamakage. This could turn out to be a B ranked mission. It is too much for us to handle"
"But our Sensei is still out there! We need to save him!" I argued against Nobuo. Leaving Makoto Sensei here in grave danger didn't feel right to me. The group started to argue about what we should do. Me, Hisashi and Omi wanted to persuade Makoto Sensei while team Gemini wanted to return to the Yamakage's office. Our started to get louder and louder, we made a huge risk to be found by the monsters hiding in the dark tunnels.
Shiori silenced and made the final decision.
"We are finding that man, alive. I have unanswered questions from him" we all went silent. We looked at her, knowing that there was something behind her eyes. It could have been irritation, madness or determination.
My short friend split us into smaller groups. She thought it would be more more effective and faster. It was me and Omi in one group, Shiori and Kohaku in one and Hisashi, Nobuo and Naiya in the last group. She had thought this through as one group had at least one fire user to light the way.
Naiya once again questioned, and was worried about losing one another.
"We won't. I have seals on both Aiko and Hisashi and they act as a beacon of you guys are in danger. I will teleport as fast as you guys gets in trouble"
"Didn't you say earlier that you couldn't teleport infinitive? You will run out of chakra eventually"
"We also came with the solution that Kohaku will will give me chakra when I need it" Shiori stated and she and the Uzumaki disappeared in one direction of the tunnel.
I used a weaker version of my fire lance that only covered my hand, making it smaller than its complete form, but strong enough to light up our path. It didn't drain too much chakra from me either.
Me and Omi walked the opposite way of what the others went. Our search for my teacher was long and almost dreadful. We were in constant danger of stumbling upon a gigantic landshark. Every quake, every rumble we heard sent a cold shiver down my spine, thinking that it could be it. I had to flip my fear in to positivity instead, of else I would never have a chance to find my Sensei.
Despite of trying to look at the bright side, fear and stress overcame me.
"It feels like we have been here for hours! We are never going to find him. He might as well been eaten by those creature by now!" Omi noticed my change in attitude and tried to work with me.
"What are you talking about? Of course we find him! With your amazing sensory capability, we will find him!"
"I told you! I have difficulty finding him because of how he is in a constant movement!" My pessimism won over me. The darkness had successfully made me paranoid by the time I have spent down there. Omi grabbed my arms, making me have to look at them. They actually seemed to be as upset as I was. Omi usually were carefree, almost too carefree. They never showed any other specific emotion in public.
They were done with my negativity, they scolded me to have such a thought and that I should focus.
"How can I focus when I know that I might lose my Sensei?! Do you know how it feels to lose someone? Do you know how it feels to be forced to watch your close one die in front of you-"
"I had to kill my parents in order to remain my village stable" they silenced me with something as personal as I blabbered about. Omi for once, shared a part of their story with me.
"Assassins broke in to my house, threatened my parents and my grandfather, the Kosuikage. My parents were high military nobility. The adds suns wanted at least either of them dead, and they made me have to choose and do the bidding, just to torture me. Believe me, I know how it feels to kill off the once that are close to you" I could see no lies in their eyes. The only thing I could see was honesty. We stood like that for a moment, letting me sink in the information.
The silence didn't scare me anymore. The atmosphere was different in a calming way. I started to giggle, and then it turned in to laughter, making my friend very confused.
"H-hey! I just shared an important part of my life! There's nothing to laugh about-"
"No no it's not that!" It was the first time seeing them flustered too, it was cute."
"I keep forgetting that I'm not alone.. that I have friends that actually do know how I feel. I just feel silly, that's why I laughed. But thank, Thank you for being honest with me" I gave them a reassuring smile and they hugged me. I usually didn't hug someone if they weren't close to me, but that time it actually felt nice.
We decided to continue the search and we ended up finding my Sensei's silly beanie with the our village crest on it.
"It looks like it didn't fall off long ago. He must be close by!" We got our hopes up and started to run once again without thinking. We didn't notice the grumble because of our excitement, making us vulnerable to the monster we had tried to avoid. A huge landshark came from above, making us having to back off.
The monster covered the already huge tunnel and blocked our path. We both started to run the opposite way as the landshark started to chase us.
"Water style: explosive water shockwave!" Omi grabbed my arm and turned around as they spit out great volume of water get us away from the creature, as well as hindering it at the same time. I could sense that the jutsu took a lot of chakra. The water came to an end and we still had to run as we could still hear and feel the quake of the monsters running.
"How is it so fast?!"
"Don't look back. Just keep running!" The rumble was getting louder and louder and the landshark has almost caught up to us. Both of us knew that we had wandered deep in to the tunnels and that we were far from safety. I thought it could have been the end of us. Random thoughts started to run through my mind, like how I couldn't save us from the disaster, or how Shiori couldn't have sensed that we were in huge danger. I also started to think about Harumiko and how she would deal with the death of her "only" sister.
The monster roared as it leaped at us with its sharp claws. Even if I was sure that there was no escape, I tried to run as fast as I could. I took a last glance at the landshark, just to see that Omi grabbed the claw of the monster to immediately stop the running creature, but it had successor stabbed through Omi however.
"OMI!!!" The monster couldn't budge, Omi held it with great strength, despite the immense bleeding. They started to laugh. It made me confused. Nothing about that situation was funny. I felt upset about Omi's behavior. I wanted to scold them but they already spoke up.
"Hahah! I never thought I would shield myself like this to a human! But… it is thanks to you that I was able to have real friends. To know people that would see be as a person and not a monster. I've… I've never felt this happy before, and that is why I could do this without hesitation or regrets. Aiko, thank you for seeing me as.. well, me!" Feared started to stream down their face, a new expression I had never seen them in before. I barely knew if they could cry before that moment!
"O-Omi I.. I-" a pair of hands was laid on our shoulders and we were teleported somewhere else. But it wasn't too far off from where the mister was as you could still hear its roaring.
I quickly stood up and looked around the area to see it was only Shiori and Kohaku visible. The rest of the group was here, if not more but I couldn't see them.
Kohaku quickly came to Omi's aid and started to heal their open wound.
"You could have teleport us earlier? That would have been great!" I started to scold Shiori for not being there in time.
"We weren't done preparing" she excuses but I didn't buy it at all at that moment. I was throwing a fit. Which I rarely do and there were only a few people who could make me do that and one of them is Shiori.
"Is that more important than a friends life?! I never thought you would stoop so low Shi-"
"Do you seriously think they will die! You forget too easily Aiko. They're a jinchuriki. The tailed beast inside them are doing everything in its power to keep Omi alive. You're underastimate them again" Shiori scolded me instead and faced towards were the rumbling sound came from. My instincts quickly switched.
"Why aren't we escaping?!" I questioned but no ones answered me.
I could see the creature coming closer to us. I stood close to Kohaku and Omi incase something would happen to them. Suddenly, seals along the walls started to light up. The seals festered on the landshark, slowing them and finally trapped them in the net like trap.
I realized that the seals was what they were preparing.
"Let's knock em' dead darlings!" A swarm of snow birds flew right in to the monster, hitting it repeatedly. It roared in irritation but the seals still held it tightly. Hisashi appeared behind and shrugged.
"Ah I didn't expect it to do much"
Talia appeared from the tunnel wall and started to slash the creature with her scythe. Her blade made barely any scratches on the landsharks skin sadly enough. She backed flipped away when she realized that there was no use in attacking it.
"Talia? You're here?" Shiori was surprised, it looked like she wasn't aware of the amount of people that was actually there.
"You think I'm leaving your stupid ass here?" She retorted and returned to our side.
The landshark opened its mouth wide open, and rocks appeared from it and started to shoot directly at us.
"Not so fast! Earth style: mud wall!" Both Nobuo and Hitoshi appeared from above, smashed the ground and a rock wall covered in front of the landshark.
"Stay low!" Nobuo yelled and we all laid down on the ground, avoiding the rocks that actually succeeded to penetrate through the rock wall. Our rock shield disappeared with the monster rock blasts.
"Looks like I have to help you again"
"It's almost cute to see you here to help little ol' me" I looked over my shoulder to see Naiya and Shinju. They had chains that was attached to their wrists and I couldn't comprehend how they would drag so much chain along with them. They were bound to be heavy.
Despite the weigh, they moved with incredible speed towards the landshark. With swift motions, thy had wrapped the chains around the monster. They settled themself against the tunnel walls and they both used fire nature's chakra to warm up the chains. The creature roared again and with ease shook the girls away. I quickly ran to their rescues and caught bit of the girls and returned to the others.
"Dammit!" I heard the Uzumaki curse. I looked at her and the injured jinshuriki. I could see that Kohaku was running low on chakra too.
"hold on a little more. I will aid you as fast " Fumiko and Yumi appeared from behind. I felt so relieved to see them come to our rescue. I was of course greatfull to the others to take the risk to find us.
"How can I ignore my sweetheart when she is in danger?" Fumiko winked at me and I tried to ignore her obvious flirt.
"And I can't leave my brother here either. You know how he is.."
"I heard that!" I could Nobuo yell not from afar.
"I hope you have a master plan of some sort. We need to knock this thing out"
A cooperation ninjutsu right away when I glanced at my girl friends. They knew immediately what I was thinking about.
"We haven't done that since the last time someone bullied Yumi, and that was a long time ago!" Fumiko laughed in excitement.
"Oh how my jutsu used to be weak.."
"But you're stronger now" I put a reassuring hand on Yumi's shoulder, giving her a genuine smile despite the mess. She used to have really bad self-esteem, but thanks heavens that she is in a better state.
We stood in our position, Yumi in the middle and me and Fumiko on each of her sides.
"Wind style: air bullet!" Yumi spitted a storm I'd vacuum bullets from her mouth, hitting the landshark. Me and Fumiko spitted fire on to the "bullets" giving them fire, making them do more damage. A colourful storm of orange and blue flame bullets covered the landshark and we stopped ourself to not kill the creature. When the smoked clear, you could see that the monster had laid down in defeat, or so we thought.
The landshark opened its eyes and used their remaining strength to snapp off the net seals.
An overwhelming weigh fell upon me as I fell on my knees. Every last bit of our strength was for nothing. I lost all hope in that moment, thinking that I couldn't even save my friends.
"Dammit, dammit! DAMMIT!" I was hopelessly hitting the ground, trying to get the last frustration out of my system before embracing my "fate".
Something had snapped in Yumi. She quickly returned to the others and immediately spoke with Shiori.
"Do you have chakra left?"
"Mmm" It was uncertainty in her voice, but Yumi gave it a shot anyways.
"Is it enough to do that jutsu? Together it can be stronger!" I stood up, watching the white haired beauty encouraged my teammate. Shiori understood that there was no other option. They ran towards the charging monster without fear as Shiori put on her goggles.
They both screamed out the jutsu they combined to make something greater.
"Wind style: wind rush!
Fire style: fire rush!"
"Scorch style: infernal storm rush!" They spun their bodies, coating them self with their respective matured transformation to form a drill like attack. They spiraled around each other, creating an even bigger attack together. A tornado coated in flames rushed towards the landshark with equal size and power. They clashed against each other with immense power, making the tunnel shake. The monster tried its best to no budge from the attack, but you could see clearly that it was trembling.
With a final push from the female duo, they overpowered the monster and they defeated it. The creature fell over as Shiori and Yumi stopped their jutsu and fell. Shiori caught Yumi mid air and made a smooth landing with Yumi's help by using her wind nature to ease the landing.
"We did it!" She hugs Shiori tightly while still being carried by her. They returned to us as heroes and we all praised them for what they did.
"That was incredible!"
"I have never seen something like that before!"
"See, theyre happy for you. You're not the same person as those rumors" I told Shiori but she didn't say anything.
"Let's get out of here, now"
"You're forgetting that I'm on a mission. I can't leave them" I could hear Shinju and Naiya talking at the back.
"Whatever! I have a meeting with my new little friend~" I felt Shinju's presence slowly disappear.
"Let's rest and wait for the landshark kids to appear" Nobuo said and I questioned his decision, thinking that it could be more creature nearby.
"We scouted the area before and it's only the mother and her children around her. We are waiting for the children to find their mommy and reveal themself so we can snatch Makoto Sensei" He explains his plan and I remained calm and sat down to rest. Fumiko had taken over to heal Omi's wounds, Kohaku took a rest with her teammates and Yumi provided Shiori with chakra.
"I didn't thought a bunch of genins and chūnins would knock a gigantic landshark" Hisashi commented as he sat down beside me.
"Not me either. But here we are" I smiled of relief.
We didn't have to wait long until the smaller landsharks popped up. They saw their mother fainted on the ground and immediately ran to her aid. One of them threw away our Sensei at us before running towards their mother. Hitoshi and Hisashi quickly ran to get Makoto Sensei.
"Do you have enough chakra to teleport us back?" Hisashi asked as they arrived with our fainted teacher. Shiori reassured she could take us home and ordered us to put our hands on to her shoulder or back. We did as she said as Shiori focused really hard. In just a flash, we appeared in mothers office. Luckily, it was only her there.
"Can someone explain why three fainted person and a bunch of kids is doing in my office?" Mother didn't seem to be surprised at all, just demanded an explanation. I looked at Shiori and saw that she had also fainted. It must have taken a lot of chakra for her to teleport so many people and such a long distance.
"You know what? Never mind, let's just get these shinobis to the hospital! And the team assigned to Makoto Sensei follows me to the hospital, the rest of you are dismissed!"
Kohaku gave a detailed explanation about what had happened, and I then had to fill in from where Omi got badly injured.
"Ah I see. And then the others came to your rescue? Even other shinobis who wasn't assigned to the mission came to help?" We all nodded and my Sensei started to apologize for not being more on alert.
"Don't blame yourself too much, but yes I do agree that you should have been more focused. The mission was not a failure as I can assume that the landshark won't get closer after being beaten up!" Mother approved our mission and everyone was dismissed as some nurses moved my Sensei to another room.
Mother gave me a kiss on the forehead and praised me for succeeding the mission.
"You've done great today. Get some rest now" Mother left the room and the other team left as well, leaving me and Hisashi with Shiori and Omi.
"Today has been insane…"
"I'm hanging out with Shiori and you on a daily basis, define insane" Hisashi sassily retorted, meaning he was on a better mood. I recalled that he wanted to discuss about a dead man.
"What is with the doctor that bothers you so much?"
"Are you so oblivious about him or are you just really stupid?" He went back to be pissed.
"Are you aware about what he has done behind our backs? Have you ever wondered why Shiori "randomly" gets injured for "no reason?" Some things did make connections but it could also be coincidence, at least that's what I thought until Hisashi's last argument.
"Take a look on her left ankle" I thought it was a random order but I did as he said anyway. I lifted up Shiori's blanket a bit to check on her ankle and there it was. A barcode and under it was a text that said "Subject S". My memory recalled that the doctor has mentioned that before and things started to make sense for me.
"He… Atsushi, he made experiments on her?" He nodded and a silence fell upon the room. I looked at my black haired friend, trying to imagine how much she had to endure.
"Wait.. was Harumiko aware of this? I knew she volunteered worked at his lab.."
"Yes and she probably knew more. She didn't share any information for Shiori sake and safety" I felt stupid and blind for not knowing what was going on.
"She didn't call for help because of the doctors title. But I'm sure he threatened Shiori as well to not tell anyone. She had no choice but to obey Doctor Atsushi"
"And it was hell to do that" Shiori had woken up and sat up on her hospital bed.
"The doctor made several experiments to try to make me the "ultimate weapon" he wanted to use my kekkei genkai to advantage but has failed several times" She told us many things that the doctor had done. There was a possibility that she still held some things secret, but I was glad with what Shiori shared with us.
"I knew that blind eye of yours didn't appear naturally…" Hisashi commented and snapped me out of my own thoughts.
"Yes. But there is not much I can do. He is dead now, and I'm free"
Y'all I'm back. The reason it took so long was because I was busy with fictober when I was supposed to post the chapter so it got uphold, but now it's back!