Chapter 29: Echoes

"There's no one here," they looked around the temple spreading out slowly.
"Do you think she left?" The question echoed through the vast room quietly. Kakashi shook his head.
"It's possible, but I find it unlikely since the last team here had so many difficulties."
"And that was just a few days ago," Sasuke commented activating his Sharingan.
"That doesn't mean she couldn't move. Her location might have been compromised, or she might have been called back to wherever she came from," Isamu moved toward the back of the room, the woman had come from that direction the last time he was here. "Kakashi-sensei, do you think this temple has a cellar?"
"It's possible," Kakashi moved to join him in the back.
"Then let's go," they started toward the shadow laden back of the room, hoping to find an entrance. Hoping something would lead them to Tsubaki.
They found a stairwell going down into the darkness. They checked the steps carefully, there was no sign that someone had been down there, but that was true for the rest of the hall. So they started down, Kakashi in front and Sasuke in the rear, moving slowly into the dark abyss.
The stair ended into a long hallway that stretched back toward the temple compound gates. Several doors lined the hall and a few smaller halls branched off, they traveled down the halls briefly finding themselves in dead ends or entering complex labyrinths. The team opened all the doors to check them out; an empty room lay behind each one as they moved down the hall.
As they approached the last door, the team had given up on finding anything, but that's when they heard the noise. Someone was behind that last door gasping for breath. Could it be what they had come for, could the person behind that door be Tsubaki and her captor? Kakashi motioned for Isamu and Kohaku to stay back, for Sasuke to come forward and took hold of the door handle. They all subconsciously held their breath as Kakashi twisted the handle slowly. The door swung in slowly, revealing a light that cast two shadows out into the hallway.

"Granny Tsunade," Naruto ran through the door into the Hokage's office.
"Naruto," she looked up from her work on the desk, it had finally reached the point Shizune would no longer allow her to put it off.
"I know how to catch that woman, and save Tsubaki," he gasped crossing the room. Tsunade raised her brow looking at him, he nodded a grin spreading across his face. "I just thought of it."
"What's your plan Naruto?" Tsunade laced her fingers and leaned forward in her chair.
"All this time we've gone after them, we sent a standard team. What we need, Granny Tsunade is a massive show of strength. Surround her, the temple, and whatever else, with every available shinobi we have. There's no way she could out maneuver everyone."
"What if she does Naruto? What if I send everyone, which would leave the village totally defenseless for at least three days, and she gets past them? Or worse she decides to cut her own losses and kills Tsubaki, then slips away the same as when she entered and fled the village?"
Naruto shook his head, "whatever jutsu she uses doesn't work on children. That's why Isamu and Tsubaki could see what was happening when no one else could. If we take the genin out, they can pinpoint her location. They can keep her from getting away as long as they don't fall under a regular genjutsu."
"How can you be sure that they don't? How can you know that all children are immune to whatever jutsu the enemy uses?" Naruto and Tsunade locked glares, both certain they were right in their argument. "What if it was just Tsubaki and Isamu who could see through it, and we send all those shinobi out there for nothing?"
"What if it works?" Naruto slammed his hands down on the desk, leaning across it so he was right in the Hokage's face. "I would rather risk that woman getting away with us trying than to let her leave when she feels like it with my daughter in tow."
"Naruto," Tsunade sighed shaking her head. "I care about Tsubaki, I do. But being rash in a situation like this won't help anything."
"I'm not being rash!" Naruto shouted straightening to stand over the woman. "If we send a large enough force we can surround the woman, and given the proper bait she will come out."
"And what are you planning to use as bait?" Tsunade knew the answer before Naruto had the chance to speak. She did not like it, risking everything on a hunch like Naruto wanted. He was a sure pick for the next Hokage, he was strong; but they did not know the capacities of this woman, or how many people might have joined her during the past few weeks.
"If she wants me, then that's what she'll get," Tsunade knew by the look in Naruto's eyes there was no way she could change his mind about this.
"Naruto, if you plan on doing this wait for Kakashi and his team to come back. I have faith in their abilities."
"If they come back empty handed, I'm going regardless of what you want," they locked gazes again briefly before Naruto turned and left the office. Tsunade leaned back in her chair and sighed.
"What am I going to do with him?" she asked turning her chair around to look out the window. Tsunade looked up to the sky, "what would you have done?"

Dead weight was the worst thing in the creation of everything. It was frustrating how a single little girl could cause so much trouble and then just become dead weight. If the situation had not become so pressing in such a short span of time things would have been different. For instance, she would have waited for Tsubaki to regain consciousness and then punish her in some way for her stupidity. Or would have just left the child to die, she was growing to be more trouble than she was worth. But she could not wait around and could not risk losing the child yet, not when she still had a mission to complete.
But how she hated dead weight!
"You little pain in the," she gasped running with the girl through the hidden tunnels of the temple basement. "When this is over, you will pay for this." The unconscious child weighed down on her back, her legs becoming entangle with the child's. Everything that had been going so well was starting to unravel because this child decided to try another escape attempt.
She could hear the shinobi team checking the rooms; hopefully she could get out of this. Nothing could save her from the wrath of the company if she returned with an uncompleted mission, not even death since they had developed that jutsu. She cursed to herself readjusting the weight of the child and pausing to hear what the shinobi team was doing.
"This one's empty too," it was a little girl that spoke. She smiled to herself.
A child? Was the Hokage not taking this seriously, she sent another genin team to check this out after sending a team of elite that had failed? She continued onward trying to keep herself from tripping herself up in Tsubaki's feet.
"Wait," she cursed again hearing the overly annoying and impossibly familiar voice. "I hear something."
How could the Uchicha still be alive? She had desecrated his internal organs, there was no way he could still be alive. Maybe it was someone else; surely there were other people who sounded like him. But there was that chance…
No. She had killed him. No one could have survived her killing strike, not even the infamous Uchicha.
"I don't hear anything," the girl was obviously not use to stealth missions she was a noisy thing. But that could be used to her advantage, she could make her escape easier if she was not worried about the shinobi hearing her.
"Go ahead little girl keep it up," she mouthed started off again.
"Footsteps," she stopped mid step. How could they have heard her? "Behind that wall."
"There must be secret tunnels down here," there was no mistake. It was the Uchicha. He had survived. Now she would really be getting it from Headquarters. She cursed once again. How could everything have fallen apart like this?
"Search the room, see of you can find the entrance," the Copy-Cat Ninja was here too? She wanted to drop the child and flee. She could, it would take a bit of finagling on her part with the company, and restarting the mission on square one. But was that really worth the hassle?
She could still get away with Tsubaki. It would undoubtedly be a close call, but she could do it. She felt the child would, in part, make up for all the delays in this mission. The company was always looking for new recruits and this one was already trained in the shinobi arts. She would take the child, for now. If the situation reached the point where abandoning the child was the only way to escape, so be it.
Cursing she adjusted Tsubaki's weight and started off.

They poured into the room and spread out. Someone had been in this room, the remnants of meals were set in one of the corners, a chair was upset in the middle, a table was laden with papers, plans for something, and there was a rough bed-like structure next to the door. This must have been her base, and it was recently abandoned. "She couldn't have gotten too far," was the thought running through the team's minds.
They scanned the walls, moving slowly running their fingers through the seams of the bricks, over the rough texture of the blocks, feeling for a switch, a leaver, a hinge. Sasuke found it, beside the table, a small leaver hidden in the mortar of the bricks. The door swung inward, and the room was filled with the echoing of someone running through the hidden passage.
"I'll take point, Kohaku stay behind me if we need the mind transfer jutsu you'll have to be ready. Isamu you and Kohaku watch each other at the confrontation. Sasuke take the rear. No matter what happens, watch yourselves. Now let's move," they started down the passage at a run.
It was pitch black in the tunnel. Too dark to see anything, not even Kohaku's back. How were they supposed to fight if they could not see? Isamu kept quiet; he just kept going following the sound of the footsteps, which were tailing the echoes of their target. They kept going straight, running blindly into what could possibly be a trap.
"Kakashi, the echo is coming from behind us now," he knew to stop before he ran into Kohaku, silence weighed down on them listening for the echo of the woman's escape. Isamu looked blankly into the dark, waiting to find if he could hear anything.
"What happened to her echo?" Kohaku asked in a soft whisper somewhere in front of him.
"I know I heard her behind us, maybe she stopped," Sasuke sounded really close to him, he took a small step forward.
"Isamu, don't move," the order was whispered in a tone that left no room to host thought of not instantly obeying. He set his foot quietly back on the ground and strained to hear something in the distance.
"Do you hear that?" he asked. It sounded like someone was gasping for breath, like they had been running carrying something heavy, like a captive.
"This way," they started off silently toward the sound of the gasps.
As they moved in closer, Isamu felt his own breath coming in gasps in rhythm of their target's. Was everyone feeling the excitement and anxiousness he was? Or was that just because this was his sister they would finally be rescuing? He was getting closer and closer, he could see it; victory, a spectacular rescue and a triumphant return to the village. It was what he had imagined ever since he was little, and now it was happening.
"Damn, where'd they get to?" he heard the woman pant. "I haven't heard them since I doubled back," a small globe of light appeared in the distance. A grin spread across Isamu's face, this was it.
"Ready, Kohaku," he heard a nearly silent response and a slight shift in stance from Kohaku. She was going to do the mind transfer, which meant he'd have to catch her body when it happened. He moved closer to Kohaku and got ready for it.

She felt the spike in chakra and dodged just in time. She could guess what that jutsu was, and luckily she had just readjusted Tsubaki, the transfer went to the unconscious child rather than her. Grinning she dropped the girl onto the floor and kicked her hard. This was the breaking point, she would abandon the girl and count her losses there was no point in continuing if they had one of the Yamanaka with them.
She turned to leave when something grabbed her leg. No not something, someone, the girl. She twisted around to see the girl and cursed. Damn her luck and this assignment. The girl had a twisted smile on her face then it melted away into shadow along with the rest of her. She cursed again, caught in a genjutsu. Not that it mattered she could easily escape a genjutsu.
She stopped her chakra flow and went to release it all at once but something stopped her. Her chakra had not stopped. Her chakra would not stop. What was happening? This was just a genjutsu, what else could it have been… The Copy-Cat Ninja and the Uchicha, she was trapped in a doujutsu.

"We've got her," Sasuke focused all his chakra to ensure the jutsu did not fail and started forward with Kakashi over to the woman and Tsubaki.
"Alright Kohaku, release the jutsu," Tsubaki's body fell limp releasing her grip on the woman's leg. Kakashi knelt beside her and lifted her into his arms. Tsubaki was thin and looked pale. He smiled standing up and retreating back to Kohaku and Isamu. "Well now, what have we here?" Sasuke asked with a smirk.
"Sasuke," Kakashi's tone pulled him back into reality. This was not before; he could not let his anger get the better of him anymore. He refocused, maintaining control of his anger at the woman.
"What are we going to do now?"
"We find some way to transport her, and get the two of them back to the village. Tsubaki seems to be injured, and we don't have a trained medical-nin with us." The woman started laughing, a high-pitched malicious laugh that echoed eerily in the tunnel.
"You think you've won," she laughed. Sasuke cursed under his breath, she was breaking free, "you think a team of under trained, inexperienced nobodies led by an elite like the Copy-Cat Ninja can stop me?" she yelled and broke completely free.
Sasuke barely registered the kick that was coming for his face, sheer instinct alone brought his arm up in time to block but it was still a hard enough kick that he skidded across the floor. It was quickly followed by a punch coming in at his unguarded side. He raised his other hand to block, when suddenly he found himself on the ground looking up at the cold hatred-filled eyes of the woman. She smirked, and then changed, back into the little girl. Sasuke gritted his teeth, clenched his fist and moved to attack.
The woman was hurled through the air, Isamu's arms wrapped around her guiding the attack into the wall behind Sasuke. Sasuke was on his feet in seconds and whipped around to see Isamu kneeling over top of her, repeatedly punching her in the face. The boy was gasping for breath, tears were streaming down his face, a face set in determination. The woman was not struggling, she was not fighting back, she was not even conscious.
"Enough Isamu," the boy stopped mind-swing and took a deep breath leaning back.
The instant Isamu stopped, the woman's eyes snapped open, she sneered and kicked up, landing a solid hit on the back of the young genin's head. All the breath fled the boy's lungs as he vaulted forward. Just before he landed on her, the woman shoved him aside, releasing her jutsu and stood up leering at the rest of the team and dusted herself off picked her light back up.
Kakashi rushed forward, Sasuke seconds behind him. They had to capture this woman there was no other option. Kunai flashed, the hall was filled with what sounded like thousands of birds chirping, and a dazzling blue light. A smile spread across the woman's features, a smile not a smirk, her eyes locked on Kohaku and Tsubaki.
She would have to rethink this, she told herself and then turned to Kakashi and Sasuke. "I am terribly sorry, but I'm afraid I must go," in a cloud of smoke she was gone.
"I'm going this way, Sasuke back track. She can't have gotten very far in these tunnels. Kohaku make sure Isamu is alright and watch over Tsubaki," Kohaku nodded slowly. "We'll be back shortly," Kohaku nodded again and watched Kakashi and Sasuke run in opposite directions.

She watched the two of them separate, the two real threats. Now getting out would be simple. She smiled to herself looking at the three children. Two of them were useless and the third did not look to be much trouble, as soon as the coast was clear she could really make her escape. She breathed in deeply through her nose, counting to ten and then released it counting to ten, deep breath counting to twenty, out counting to twenty.
"1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9…10," she dropped down silently just out of range of the light.
Perhaps she could take one of them, it would easy enough to overpower the girl and take any one of the three. Or perhaps two of them, returning with such a marvelous addition as two, trained kunoichi could possibly grant her a bit of clemency with the company for the brief delay in her assignment. And taking the girls would leave the boy in another wave of soul-crushing depression, the kind he would never recover from. She liked that, it was just about as satisfactory as bringing in two new recruits.
She would try it. Besides, she was running out of things to lose.

For some reason Kohaku was having trouble controlling her breathing. It was coming in fast ragged gasps and her chest felt like it was about to explode. Whether that was because her breathing was so irregular or her heart was beating so rapidly she did not know, but she could tell something was happening to make her so anxious.
She looked down at Tsubaki; her best friend was completely out of it. She looked over to Isamu; he was in the same condition, that blow to the head really did a number on him. She would have to get them together; she could defend a spot, but not two. She groaned silently to herself, she would have to move one of them and fast.
Isamu was smaller; he would be easier to move. But that would be leaving Tsubaki unguarded while she got to Isamu and brought him back. Kohaku looked desperately between the two; Tsubaki was there, it would take time getting her over to Isamu, but she would be ungarded if Kohaku went to move Isamu. She nodded determining her course of action.
She stood up, grabbed Tsubaki by the upper arms and started to pull her down the hall toward her brother. She laid the siblings side by side then made ready to guard them until Kakashi and Sasuke came back.
A chilling laugh whispered behind her. Kohaku quickly turned around to find the woman standing between the heads of her two sleeping comrades. She felt her heart rate quicken even more, but her breathing settled looking at the face of her enemy.
"They must have a lot of faith in you, leaving you alone to guard the Jinchuuriki's children," the woman said in a sweet, almost motherly, tone.
Kohaku gulped pulling her kunai. She looked straight in the eye of the woman, and knew she had no chance of beating her in a fight. Had at least one of the others been around or conscious she could have done the mind transfer jutsu. But if she missed now, there was no telling what would happen before she made it back to her body. It was too great a risk. What was she going to do?
"What are you going to do now?" the woman knelt down and ran her fingers across Tsubaki's face. Kohaku gulped trying to figure out what she could do. She was just a genin; she could not handle stuff like this.
Kohaku looked down at Tsubaki and Isamu, they were counting her. Kakashi and Sasuke were counting on her. Naruto and Sakura were counting on her. The Hokage was counting on her. She could not let them all down, but knowing that she could not fail did not give her any idea about what to do.
"It seems the Hidden Leaf isn't too concerned with the well being of its genin," the woman traced the outline of Isamu's cheek. "I keep meeting up with the under trained and unsure." She looked up at Kohaku, a smile spread on her lips. "Now, child of the Yamanaka Clan, are you going to come quietly or will I need to knock you out as well?" the woman stood up and stepped between Isamu and Tsubaki so she was right in front of Kohaku.
"I'm not going with you, and neither are Tsubaki and Isamu," Kohaku tightened her grip on her Kunai looking straight into the eyes of the woman. She hoped she had the ability to keep that promise.
The woman chuckled, "Oh, is that," she stopped before finishing the sentence. Her eyes widened and she turned to look at the ground. Isamu had a bloodied kunai in his hand and a grimace contorting his features.
"Yeah, that's right," he said coming to his feet. "The only person going somewhere is you, right back to the village." A smile appeared on the woman's face.
"Little Isamu is acting so tough. But I know it's just an act, you little brat," she spat the last part.
"This is no act," Isamu pulled another kunai from his holster. "This is serious, and you're not getting away."
"Oh, and how do you know that?"
"Because I've got a plan," Isamu threw the new kunai in the darkness above them and lunged forward wrapping his arms around the woman, with the bloodied kunai at her throat. "Now Kohaku!" She sent out the jutsu just as the other kunai came falling to the ground; accompanied by dozens more, creating an echo loud enough to get any body's attention.

Kakashi stopped in his tracks; an echo was reverberating down the halls. It was coming from where he had left Kohaku and the others and that could only mean one thing; the woman had never left that area and now Kohaku was fighting her alone. He cursed turning and starting back the way he'd come. He had to get to them before this was over, or he might lose the whole team on this assignment.
When he arrived he found Kohaku on the ground, Isamu holding a kunai to the woman's throat and the cause of the noise all over the floor. Had one of them done that, it was a clone jutsu, not just a clone jutsu—it was a shadow clone jutsu since it had made so much noise. While still determining if one of his team made the multitude of kunai Isamu stepped away from the woman, but did not lower the kunai.
"Is that you Kohaku?" he asked bring in Kakashi's attention.
"She missed, little boy," a cloud of smoke erupted around her and she was gone. Isamu cursed under his breath lowering his arm.
"What happened?" Sasuke entered the globe of light and stood in shock at the vast amount of kunai lying around on the ground, the bloodied kunai in Isamu's hand and the two unconscious girls.
"She got away again," Isamu sighed looking down at the kunai in his hand, his plan had not exactly worked but at least they had Tsubaki back.
Kohaku pushed herself up to her knees as Isamu cleaned the blood from his kunai and returned it to his holster. "I'm sorry Isamu, I don't know what happened." The boy turned a smile to her.
"It's alright Kohaku, we saved Tsubaki."
Kakashi walked over to Tsubaki and picked her up, "come on, let's get her home."