Posted: May 19, 2013
Last Updated: May 19, 2013
Chapter WC: 6,050
Story WC: 123,774

Worth Dying For

Chapter 17
Mist

-9:00 AM, August 6, 312 TE-

-Nagi Island-

Sato Tsubasa was a minor lord who ruled over a small territory on Nagi Island, just south of Water Country. He had a large gut—though, shockingly, only one chin—which was wrapped in three tick layers of opulent golden and purple robes. He wasn't a wealthy man, but he had himself surrounded by servants and art while sitting primly in an open audience room at the center of what he called an 'estate.'

He was exactly the sort of man Sasuke detested.

"Someone is terrifying my fishermen," Sato was saying in an imperious tone. He didn't deign to look up at Team Kakashi, choosing instead to read over a scroll as though it contained the secrets of the universe. "My subjects are under the impression that there is a sea monster inhabiting Toyama Bay and refuse to go out on to the water. You will discover which of my illustrious rivals has conjured up this trick and you will do so swiftly."

Sasuke really, really wanted to smash his face in. Naruto must have had a similar thought because Kakashi-sensei suddenly reached out and gripped the back of his neck, making the blond emit a quiet, pained noise.

"Of course Sato-dono," Naruto said instead in a strained voice. "We'll start investigating right away."

Still not looking up, Sato waved a hand and a rail thin young man stepped forward and ushered them out. Team Kakashi silently followed him out of the estate and along a winding path that led down the steep hill that Sato's home was perched upon. The young man wrung his hands as he walked, nervously glancing back at them every few minutes.

"Excuse me?" the Fangirl said, and the young servant jumped half a foot in the air.

"Y-yes, Shinobi-sama?"

Ino smiled brightly at him and Sasuke could literally see some of the man's nervousness melt away. She was, if nothing else, very good at working with people—not to mention the only one on their team capable of doing so. "Sorry to bother you, but I'm curious about something and I was hoping you could help," she said. "Do you happen to know why Sato-dono hired a Leaf-nin team instead of Mist-nin? The Hidden Mist Village is much closer, isn't it?"

The young man bit his lip and his eyes darted up toward Sato's estate. "Sato-sama is unhappy with Hidden Mist Village. We have seen Mist-nin in Nagi more often than usual over the past few years and they often cause property damage," he said softly. "I have heard that Sato-sama submitted a formal complaint, but they did not respond so now he sends all of his missions to Hidden Leaf Village."

"That's horrible!" The Fangirl sounded so sincere that Sasuke would have believed her had he not been living with her for months. "Please don't think that all shinobi are like that; we really aren't. I'm so sorry that you've had such bad experiences in the past."

The tightness in the young man's shoulders started to disappear, but then immediately returned as they reached the town that sat at the base of the tall hill. "Of course, Shinobi-sama," he said and quickly headed back up the path they'd taken.

The Fangirl released an annoyed sigh. "Well, I tried," she grumbled.

Kakashi-sensei smiled as he patted the top Naruto's head. "Ma, what next, illustrious captain?" he asked.

With a roll of his eyes, Naruto swatted his hand away and stepped out of reach. He paused for a moment, frowning thoughtfully. "Let's split up and do a bit of reconnaissance to see what the villagers know about this so-called sea monster. My bet is that it's some damn mercenary-nin using a Genjutsu, but hopefully someone else will let something slip that will lead us in the right direction. We'll meet back here in one hour."

No more words were exchanged between them as they all headed off into the crowd and seamlessly slipped into henge of innocuous villagers. Sasuke chose the guise of a middle-aged traveler with a worn face and a soft smile. He greeted everyone he passed and stopped every now and then to chat with stall owners about their wares. After a three minutes long conversation with a woman about the tomatoes she was selling he managed to turn the conversation to fish, but she immediately started to shake her head. It took him another ten minutes to carefully pry from her the information he was looking for—that many civilians had sighted some kind of giant sea creature in the waters around the northern part of the island. There were many stories of it attacking boats, though the woman didn't seem to actually know anyone who'd been attacked, nor had she seen it herself.

The rest of his hour was entirely fruitless. Most people were barely willing to speak to a stranger, let alone discuss something that obviously frightened them. There were a few gossipmongers who were delighted by the idea of a sea monster, but they seemed to know less than anyone else in the town. Sasuke returned to his team's meeting spot disgruntled and hungry.

It only raised his spirits a little when he found out that his teammates hadn't fared any better. Kakashi-sensei was silently shadowing him like he always did on their missions, offering no advice or assistance. He seemed greatly amused with the whole situation. The Jounin was exactly like he'd been before the botched mission three weeks ago that had ended with him unconscious and bleeding out—but he was the only one who hadn't seemed to change.

As they shared their findings, Sasuke watched Naruto from the corner of his eye. He'd found himself often doing so lately. Naruto seemed somehow both more open and quieter since the mission that had led them to the underground compound. He was constantly busy with training and tended to disappear until well after midnight most days, often with his tiger in tow. More than once while sitting around the kitchen table during breakfast Sasuke had opened his mouth to say…something. But he never knew what exactly to say, so he didn't.

The Fangirl dropped her henge of a teenager with short brown hair and huffed. "That was a lot harder than it should have been. Small towns, especially ones with so much port traffic, are usually a lot gossiper. These people are genuinely scared."

Naruto nodded. "The client mentioned that most of the rumors were centered on the bay. Let's head down there and see if we can find anything ourselves."

It took only a few minutes at top speed to reach Toyama Bay. It was large, considering the size of the island, and in any other country it probably would have sported a thriving harbor attached to a large town or even a city. But this particular bay faced directly at Water Country. Sasuke didn't have to know history to know that any town that had started to be built here would have been swiftly destroyed to prevent it from becoming a threat. There was a reason why there were no major cities along the coast between Fire and Water, and the three major wars—and many more minor skirmishes—that had taken place between them were only the most obvious aspect of it.

"It seems calm to me," Naruto muttered as they stared out from the cover of the thick trees.

Nagi Island was a lot more tropical than most of Fire Country; an environment which had the benefit of trees with larger leaves, and the detriment of being very humid. And far too damp. More than once Sasuke had to resist the urge to pull at his shirt where it was sticking to his back. That he was almost entirely wearing navy blue didn't help either.

At that precise moment a crash resounded from the hillside to their left, followed by the felling of a large section of trees and rising clouds of dirt. Team Kakashi was instantly on guard, but they didn't have the chance to move before a shockwave in the form a massive blast of air hit them. Sasuke used chakra to stay rooted to the ground while covering his face with one arm. As soon as it passed a loud crack echoed through the forest and Team Kakashi scattered as they were forced to dodge another falling tree.

Sasuke had only just leapt back when something struck his shoulder, sending him spinning off balance. He barely managed to pull the motion into a controlled somersault and landed in a crouch—and then two men crashed to the ground inches away from him. Sasuke blinked and they had separated, one of them crossing the distance between the tree line and the beach in a fraction of a second. For a brief moment everyone stilled—all of them apparently surprised at the appearance of everyone else—and Sasuke used that hesitation to take stock of the situation.

There were five newcomers in total. Two of them were wearing the chillingly familiar white masks of Mist hunter-nin. Of the other three there were two men, both in their mid-twenties and dressed in simple shinobi jumpsuits. The last was a young boy who couldn't have been more than six years old. He looked equal parts determined and terrified, but the fear seemed to win out once he realized that both of the hunter-nin were standing between him and the other two newcomers.

As everyone else started to snap back into motion, Sasuke quickly put events into place. The hunter-nin had their focus primarily on the boy and the other shinobi seemed to be trying to stop them. As the masked shinobi turned to him, the rest of Sasuke's mind screamed for him to notice his own position—only a few feet away from the boy, and barely a yard from the beach of the bay. His team was back near the trees, on the other side of the hunter-nin.

Shit.

Sasuke felt like he was moving in slow motion—or else the other shinobi were just too fast. The two men lunged forward, but one hunter-nin threw them back with a large sword that seemed to appear from nowhere. The second was facing him and the boy. He flashed through a sequence of hand signs at a pace so rapid that Sasuke couldn't even catch one of them, then slammed his hands into the ground. A seal array sprung up at the contact. Sasuke was trying to leap to the side, away from the conflict they'd stumbled into, but all of this action was happening in fractions of seconds. He only managed to get two steps before a shadow fell over him.

Heart pounding in his chest and still in mid leap, Sasuke turned his head to the side. There was a huge shape the size of the Hokage Tower rising from the water behind him, blotting out the sun. Only, no, it wasn't quite as gigantic as he'd first thought, just very close, and—

He choked when he realized it was a giant eel. In a flash of motion it whipped toward the shore, heading straight for him. God, he wasn't fast enough. Sasuke had never felt so slow in his life. He cursed his Uchiha genes, which naturally gave him the ability to track and analyze movement much faster than most people. Those same genes now allowed him to see his fate, but not dodge in time to stop it.

It was horrifying, and disgusting. The eel's mouth was as wide as a single story building and easily swallowed him whole. It was squishy and slimy and the smell alone had him gagging. He had just gotten his hand wrapped around a kunai, fully intent on cutting his way free, when a second, smaller body slammed into him and pressed them both against the flesh of the eel's throat—and oh god, oh god he covered in mucus.

His only consolation was that the two hunter-nin were swallowed as well.

The eel must have turned because all four of them were jostled about by the monster's whiplash movements. The muscles of its throat—it was moving and touching him!—contracted around them, holding them in place and making it impossible for Sasuke to move his arms let alone use his kunai, never mind the disorientation that came from being tossed around inside of an eel—oh god he was in its throat!

Then without any warning it stopped. There was a popping sound and the warm, slick flesh of its throat disappeared into a cloud of smoke. Sasuke fell hard to his knees and then was already moving before his brain could even catch up. He didn't even know what direction he was going in, just away—

An elbow slammed into the side of his head. Sasuke skidded across the slick rock he'd been running on and tried to lash out in return, but his attacker was like wind and was already gone. Using chakra to steady himself Sasuke tried to fall back and regain his bearings. Instead a wall of water smashed into him with the force of five sumo wrestlers. He was left dazed and gasping, slumped against some kind of rock wall. He couldn't even resist when a pair of hands grabbed at the front of his shirt, pulled him up, and then slammed him into the wall again. His head was ringing and pounding in turns and his vision was so blurred that he could makes out nothing more than gray and white shapes.

The white quickly consolidated into the shape of a hunter-nin's mask only a few inches from his face. Sasuke feebly tried to pull away, but his muscles had turned to jelly and there was nowhere to go. He attempted a Kawarimi instead, but couldn't concentrate enough to gather even a meager amount of chakra. He was unceremoniously dragged away from what he belatedly realized was some kind of interior sea cave and down a black hallway.

He must have blacked out for a minute because he blinked and suddenly he was lying on his side on top of a dry straw mat. It was poking into the side of his face and making his neck itch. Sasuke blinked again slowly, feeling as though his eyelids were made of lead. His mouth felt thick, dry, and cottony. His head was still throbbing and sharp stabs of pain shot up his limbs at random intervals. Objectively he recognized that he probably had a concussion and a few broken bones.

It took far longer than he would have liked for his mind to fully clear, but once it had it was easy to fall back onto his academy training for situations like this.

Breath in, breath out. Don't panic. Take stock of your surroundings.

He was in a basic cage with one rough rock wall and three walls made of crisscrossing metal bars. The rock wall was black and porous, and slightly damp. Sasuke's hands and feet were bound with chains. He didn't even have to try to use chakra to know that they had chakra repressing properties. There was a cloth ball gag tied tightly around his head, making his jaw ache and preventing him from so much as moving his mouth. Sasuke lifted his head off the mat by a few inches and felt something flake off. Dried blood, probably. His aching muscles protested the movement, but the painful throbbing was already starting to subside at least a little bit.

There was someone else in the cage with him. Sasuke tensed for a moment, then realized that it was the young boy from the beach. He was awake but similarly bound and gagged. Long green hair was slicked against his face and red eyes stared fixedly at Sasuke with obvious fear.

A bolt of something that felt like lightning shot through Sasuke. He wanted to move, but his body wouldn't respond. He felt his eyes growing heavier. He tried to stop them, feeling something important dancing just at the edge of his consciousness. Red eyes. Something about red eyes… He needed to stay awake, because…

His mind clouded over again, and he sunk back into unconsciousness.

o-O-o

-11:30 AM, August 6, 312 TE-

-Toyama Bay, Nagi Island-

"Motherfucking, cock-sucking sons of bitches!" I snarled as I continued to stomp around in a circle. "Sponge-licking, twinkie-dicked, shit-ridden goat-fuckers! Ass-hopping, taint-li—"

"Would you shut up?!" Yamanaka yelled shrilly. "You're not helping!"

I spun toward her with a vocal growl. "Am I just supposed to sit still?! Those fucktards—!"

"Shut up!" she repeated.

I opened my mouth to retort angrily, but Hatake-sensei silenced me with a soft but hard, "Naruto." My mouth clicked shut. I crossed my arms firmly over my chest and stared moodily out at the water while continuing my raging tirade in my head.

A moment later I turned my glare on the man who was standing stoically a few paces away. He returned my gaze with an equally dark stare. The lower half of his face was covered by a rebreather and dark, shoulder-length hair fell over the upper half, effectively covering any expression he may have had. He wore a Mist headband with a long spike attached to the top, pointing upwards. He was a Mist-nin, it seemed, and yet he'd been going up against Mist hunter-nin.

How the hell had we managed to stumble across something like this? Not only was the 'sea monster' real, it was actually a Mist-nin's summon. The hunter-nin had apparent been pursuing the little boy that they had been guarding, and both he and the other man were pretty damn agitated that he'd been captured. Even more agitated than failing a mission warranted, I thought. After the giant eel had swallowed Uchiha, the boy, and the hunter-nin, they'd tried to follow it, but the beast moved faster than anything that large had a right to and vanished beneath the water with barely a ripple. At that point the other shinobi had whirled on us with rage in his eyes, only to be held back by this man. They conversed out of earshot for a moment and then the other man had disappeared.

"We have a common goal," this man had said. His voice was low and gruff, and distorted by the rebreather. "We may be able to assist each other."

That was great and all, but it didn't change the fact that my teammate had been kidnapped. And now we were just standing around instead of searching the island or doing something—anything. Why was Hatake-sensei humoring these shinobi? They were from the same damn village as the hunter-nin! And the man had refused to answer any questions until his partner returned from wherever the hell he was. I stared hard at the side of Hatake-sensei's head, but even though I knew he could feel it, he didn't so much as glance at me. He had to know something we didn't, something he couldn't say in front of this unknown shinobi. Or wouldn't say. Or… I shook my head vehemently and returned to pacing in a circle. Questioning everything wouldn't help. I just needed to exercise a little patience. Fucking patience…

It felt like an eternity before the shinobi finally returned. He nodded to his partner, who turned back to the rest of us.

"My name is Gōzu," he said. "And this is my brother, Meizu. We are members of the Mist Resistance Force."

Yamanaka twitched. That name must have meant something to her, but it didn't to me.

"Yukimaru-sama is very important to us, as your teammate is to you. We have a way to get both of them back, but it will require your help to do so," he continued.

"You are assuming they will both be kept alive," Hatake-sensei said. My fists clenched involuntarily; he didn't have to be so damn blasé about it.

"Yes," Gōzu said. I couldn't help but blink at his tone. He didn't sound confident or determined, but rather his voice was so flat and firm that it was as though he were stating a fact. "They are liable to assume that you and your teammate were our backup. They will not risk killing him until they have confirmed it one way or another."

Hatake-sensei nodded, accepting the words at face value. "And what do you need from us that the MRF can't do itself?" MRF… He said it like it was a known, accepted acronym.

Gōzu turned his head just a fraction so that he could stare me in the face. "A Jinchuuriki."

The change in the atmosphere was instantaneous. All four of us went unnaturally still and the air grew charged and heavy with ambient chakra. Hatake-sensei glanced over at my teammates because of their reaction—alarmed instead of confused like they should have been—which would be the equivalent of a double take for anyone else.

"How the fuck—" I started to snarl, but Hatake-sensei silenced me again with a faint flick of his hand. I clamped my jaw shut and scowled warily at Gōzu instead.

"There isn't an intelligence officer in the Elemental Nations who doesn't know your face, Uzumaki Naruto. Nor the faces of every other Jinchuuriki," Gōzu said.

I crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable. I didn't say anything though, knowing that especially in this kind of situation I should leave it to Hatake-sensei. He, at least, was going out of his way to appear as unconcerned and nonchalant as always, minus his little orange book.

Gōzu continued his explanation unprompted. Meizu hovered over his shoulder silently, his expression pinched. "We are dedicated to Yagura-sama, the Fourth Mizukage and the Sanbi's Jinchuuriki. During most of his term as Mizukage, Yagura-sama was being controlled by another shinobi. Several of our members grew suspicious of this and once we were able to confirm the truth we tried to free him. We were immediately labeled as traitors and in the ensuing battle Yagura-sama was believed to be killed and the Sanbi released from its seal within him. This was not what happened.

"Although Yagura-sama was fatally wounded he did not die and was freed from his manipulator's jutsu. He managed to flee with us out of Water Country before his wounds finally overcame him. His last act was to partially release the Sanbi, encasing himself within it and putting himself in a deep stasis sleep. Doing so should have allowed him to heal quickly, but instead he has remained unconscious for years."

It took a lot of effort not to gape at him and I was sure my teammates were feeling the same. We all knew exactly what events he was talking about—the attempted coup and assassination in Hidden Mist Village four years ago was common knowledge. But all of this still didn't explain how I was supposed to help.

"And?" Hatake-sensei said.

"We have theorized that the chakra of another bijuu will be able to jumpstart his awakening process," Gōzu said. I noticed that his answer was about as vague as it could get, with no actual explanation about who had come up with this 'theory'. "If you assist us we will be able to return Yagura-sama to his rightful place as Mizukage and we will forever remember Leaf as our ally. Yagura-sama will also expend every effort to help rescue your teammate."

My eyebrows rose at that. Everyone knew that Leaf and Mist had been at odds since the villages had been founded and I highly doubted that even something like this would change that. Not to mention the politics behind all of this… I felt suddenly uncomfortable; we'd stumbled into something way too big.

"I will speak to my team now, if you don't mind," Hatake-sensei said pleasantly.

Gōzu inclined his head forward slightly. He and his brother strode off into the thick foliage, still in sight but far enough to be well out of earshot. Hatake-sensei watched them with a faint smile until they stopped walking then turned to us. We stepped forward to form a tight circle.

"We should accept," Yamanaka said immediately.

"What, why?!" I balked.

"Reviving the Fourth Mizukage will give the MRF an edge they've never had and the legitimacy the need. This could help launch Mist into a civil war," Yamanaka replied.

"You want to start a civil war?" I said incredulously.

Yamanaka rolled her eyes. "Look at the big picture, Naruto. If Mist is in a civil war they will be forced to devote most of their resources to fighting instead of missions. And since Leaf is pretty much the closest of the Great Hidden Villages, we'll get most of that revenue instead. Plus if the MRF wins we'll have solidified an alliance with Mist and even if it fails it'll be no skin off our backs."

"At the cost of thousands of lives," Aburame said. His tone was as monotonous as ever, but somehow managed to convey a sense of disapproval.

Yamanaka stared at him for a few seconds. "Well, yeah."

"And you do not have a problem with that?" Aburame asked.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I protested. "Is no one considering the part where this could easily be a trap? Hell, those so-called hunter-nin could be working with them, holding Uchiha hostage to force us to help! They said they've been looking for a Jinchuuriki—this whole mission could have been a set up."

With a furrowed brow and a deep frown, Yamanaka considered my words. I glanced to Hatake-sensei for support, but he was just rocking back on his heels and looked unusually expressionless. Of all the times for him to leave the decision up to us, this was definitely not one of them.

"Do we take the risk and wait for a backup team to rescue Sasuke-kun?" Yamanaka asked worriedly. She bit her lip and glanced between us. "It takes days just to get here and if they—" Her breath hitched. "…If they kill him..."

I clenched my teeth and looked away. Gōzu and Meizu were watching us, possibly even reading our lips, but suddenly I couldn't bring myself to care. My shoulders felt heavy and I wanted to slump down.

"It could still be a bluff," I muttered.

Yamanaka squared her shoulders suddenly, shrugging off her worry in a way I had come to recognize as her changing from fangirl-mode to kunoichi-mode. It was something she did with disturbing ease. "I still say we agree. The potential benefits still far outweigh the risks. Even if this is a setup, Sasuke-kun is still in danger," she said while staring me dead in the eye.

Aburame nodded slowly as she spoke. "I…cannot agree with everything you have said," he murmured, "but I agree that we may need to press on regardless."

"And aren't you going to say anything about all this?" I asked Hatake-sensei while eyeing him warily. "The politics of this… It kind of involves all of Leaf. Hell, Mist could actually be behind all of this, setting us up so that they can claim that Leaf has been aiding their rebels and whatnot—which, technically, is exactly what we'd be doing. This isn't exactly something that Genin should be deciding."

Yamanaka's gaze sharpened as she stared up at our teacher. "He's right. What's going on, sensei?" she said tersely.

Abruptly I narrowed my eyes into slits. I stepped to the side so that Hatake-sensei was between me and the foreign shinobi, so that they couldn't read my lips. "You already knew that the MRF were here didn't you?" I accused. "Were we given this mission intentionally?"

"You're unusually observant today," he said.

"What?!" Yamanaka hissed. "You mean you really—!"

"We knew that the MRF were in the area, and that running into them while here was a possibility," Hatake-sensei interrupted. "Sasuke-kun's abduction was not expected, but Gōzu was correct about hunter-nin policy; he will be safe for the time being. I have faith enough that you will be able to rescue him and complete your mission."

"Reviving the Mizukage, you mean," I said.

Hatake-sensei nodded. "That is the Hokage's order."

"So Leaf heard that the MRF was looking for a Jinchuuriki…" Yamanaka said slowly. "Why weren't we alerted to this when we left? This has to be higher than a C-rank mission."

"This was intended to be a first contact mission at most. Sasuke-kun's abduction changes this. There is a team nearby who are already on their way to lend assistance, but we can't afford to wait for them."

I breathed out a long, frustrated sigh. "Sometimes being shinobi sucks. I really should have become a samurai…" I grumbled.

"Are we in agreement then?" Aburame said suddenly. "We proceed?"

"It's your mission, Naruto," Hatake-sensei said.

I breathed in deeply again. Of course I'd been handed responsibility for something like this.

I waved the two foreign shinobi over and waited until they returned before speaking again. "We'll help," I told them, "But only on the condition that you agree to terms of an alliance first."

Both of Gōzu's eyebrows rose high enough that they disappeared beneath his headband, but ultimately he nodded. "Follow me," he said.

I took point as we ran after Gōzu. He led us around the bay, up toward the rocky cliffs that ran along the island's northern shore, and then down the face of the cliff itself. I groaned internally as I jumped after him; I hated running down vertical surfaces. The pull of gravity was a lot more noticeable and I always felt as though I was going to pitch forward and go tumbling head over heels to the ground—or into the ocean, in this case. Without warning, Gōzu disappeared into an opening that blended perfectly into the rock. Catching myself just in time, I flipped into the fissure and landed in a crouch inside a tunnel.

Gōzu and Meizu waited until my entire team was inside, flicked on a bright flashlight as our only lighting, and then proceeded at a brisk walk. The tunnel seemed to be half natural, half man-made. It twisted sharply at random and more than once we had to drop down into dark pits. The walls were made of a black, porous rock that was damp and often slick with water. Gōzu ran his hand along the rock walls periodically and his chakra flared each time he did so, probably deactivating traps and seals.

After dropping into what felt like the bowels of the earth, we finally came to a dead end in the form of a tiny cavern that was filled with water. Lying on a flat rock nearby were four rebreathers like the ones Gōzu and Meizu were wearing.

"Put those on and we will proceed," Gōzu directed.

I picked one up and turned it over several times while warily eyeing the dark water. I'd been handling going underground very well so far, if I did say so myself; I had even managed to keep my breathing even the entire time. Heading into the underground compound probably helped in that respect. But there was also a very, very big difference between a brightly lit, man-made complex and diving into pitch black, freezing cold water deep beneath the earth that led into what was probably a tiny shaft.

Turning the rebreather over one more time, I stared down at the seal that was placed over the mouthpiece. It would recycle the air exhaled into it and expel it to be inhaled again, allowing its wearer to breath underwater almost indefinitely. For me, that was more of a terrifying prospect than an assuring one. I could just picture myself, trapped in the darkness, swimming through a maze of tunnels that I could never escape from for the rest of eternity. The thought was enough to send a shiver down my spine.

"You will have to channel chakra through the tenketsu near your mouth and into the seal to activate it," Gōzu said. He eyed Yamanaka for a moment, then said, "Do you all know how to swim?"

Yamanaka scowled at him. "Of course!" she snapped and then all but jammed the rebreather onto her face. Despite her annoyance, I knew Yamanaka well enough by now to notice that she wasn't nearly as confident as she pretended to be. It made me feel a little bit better to know that I wasn't the only one nervous about this, and I swiftly put my rebreather on as well.

Meizu jumped into the water without further ado. Gōzu, however, was in the middle of tying a long, thin nylon rope around his waist. He gestured me forward and I stood frozen and tense as he tied it around my waist with less than a dozen feet of extra rope between us. He continued to do the same to the rest of my team, tying them intermittently along the lead line.

When his back was turned as he tied Hatake-sensei to the end, I quickly signed to Aburame, Hidden clone stay here. He nodded, and abruptly I noticed that he had an odd, pinched expression on his face that I had never seen before. Belatedly I realized that kikaichū and water didn't really mix and that there was a good chance he was just as panicked as I was about going cave diving. I wanted to say something, but by then Gōzu had turned back to us.

After making sure that we were all ready, Gōzu jumped into the water and we followed after. It was a damn lucky thing that I'd learned to swim in the lakes around Hidden Leaf Village, though I'd never expected to use the skill for something like this. The water was just as freezing as I'd expected and of course my clothing offered no insulation. The water surrounded us like a cloak of liquid shadows, impossible to see through. I was tugged along blindly by Gōzu for a few seconds before a pale blue light suddenly erupted from one of the Mist-nin's hands. As I blinked rapidly and let my eyes adjust to the change, I saw that the light was originating from some kind of long tube, about the size of a small scroll. The illumination certainly made swimming after him a hell of a lot easier. I still felt as though the passageway was going to collapse on us and trap us at any moment, but at least now I'd be able to see when it happened.

I couldn't say how long we were underwater because it felt like an eternity to me. We passed through dozens of twisting channels that Gōzu seemed to know by heart, considering how many side-shoots we passed without a second glance. It really was a maze down here. At last we surfaced and dragged ourselves up into another dry tunnel and untied ourselves from the lead line. The rebreathers were temporarily put away and we continued walking.

Or tried walking. I stumbled more than once because I was half numb from the cold water and anything that wasn't numb was tingling manically. My waterlogged clothing wasn't helping either and was sticking in all the wrong places. Yamanaka resembled a drowned cat with hair plastered all over her face, but Aburame had it the worst, looking absolutely miserable. I don't think I'd ever seen him that emotive in the entire time we'd been a team. Hatake-sensei and Gōzu were passively mocking us by being completely, 100% dry. I assumed it had to do with that one chakra control technique that Hatake-sensei still wouldn't teach us—claiming that our control wasn't good enough yet—as it was similar to how he stayed dry in the rain.

A few minutes of walking later we finally stepped into a large, open cavern that was filled with stalactites, stalagmites, and dotted with pools of water that appeared deceptively shallow. There was more lighting here, though I couldn't quite place its origin. Gōzu's brother was waiting for us there, along with half a dozen other shinobi.

And standing there at the front of the group was Momochi Zabuza.

o-O-o

-dono – an honorific that roughly means "lord" or "master". It does not equate noble status; rather it is a term akin to "milord" or French "monseigneur", and lies in between -san and -sama in level of respect.

A/N: Dear god, this chapter… I think I must have re-written this chapter (and the next one) about four different times. It pretty much refused to be written, and the plot as it stands now is vastly different from how it started. As such, if anyone notices any inconsistencies/logical fallacies that are still remaining, please let me know!

Also, this story is officially one year old! My goal is to finish this story within the next year. It's entirely possible since I'm nearly at the half way mark currently, but…we'll see how that goes xD The second half of this story is going to be a hell of lot more action-packed!

Happy reading!

-SR

There is no fixed physical reality, no single perception of the world, just numerous ways of interpreting world views as dictated by one's nervous system and the specific environment of our planetary existence.
-Deepak Chopra