Enjoy!
Tenzo found something he didn't want to find. Rather, he didn't find something that he did want to find. Once he located Kaine and Makoto, one passed out and the other effectively restrained by the earth, he searched for the body of their opponent. He found nothing, though there was a sun-burst pattern of charred grass and wood in a circle surrounding two pristine, preserved footprints. Kakashi was right—Kaine had evidently missed a spot.
What was even more troubling was what he didn't find at the site of his own battle. Seshu and Goda's bodies were missing from where they had fallen, and Tenzo felt a momentary cringe of panic. Had they survived? No, he decided that it wasn't possible—a stab through the heart and an exploded torso weren't wounds that could simply be shrugged off. Still, he wondered what was to become of his and Kakashi's hard-fought 'victory'. The town was mostly destroyed, its occupants taken under control, and their enemies entirely absent—dead or not. Try as he might, Tenzo had a very difficult time in finding reasons to call it a successful day.
The people of Monolith Point had fortunately survived, and after bringing Kaine and Makoto back to town, Tenzo constructed a thicker, more enduring box for them all to stew within while Kakashi built up his energy again. Kaine was dumped into a bed at the inn to recover, his injuries non-threatening but exhausting. The pair of cloaked figures who Mamban had brought with him were not the same as the townsfolk—while the civilians were still groaning and gnawing at the wooden confinement, the scarred couple had dropped unconscious as soon as Mamban's will was absent from their vicinity. Unconscious, yes, but still breathing.
Kakashi had already put himself to the task of sealing away the various curse marks that took over the minds of Makoto, her parents, and the others, all at the expense of his personal health. He sealed the marks on the children, first, then worked upward in age so that Makoto's burden—placed on her lower back, just over her spine—was prioritized somewhere near the middle. Unfortunately, while sealing the mark was an adequate measure to knock them out of Mamban's control, it didn't immediately wake any of them up from a sudden state of unconsciousness. There were also injuries to consider: although Rika, Tenzo, and Akemi had each gone out of their way to avoid injuring the innocent, unwitting people, there were bumps, bruises, and fractures by the dozen.
It was going to be a long road of recovery for Monolith Point, but it had already begun the trek thanks to the diligent ninja pair from the Leaf.
He had been at the very top of the insurmountable ladder, his hand reaching forward to grasp the final rope that would allow him to pull himself to the very apex of achievement. He was a step away from power, a mere tongue's length from achieving his final goal. Before then, he had never stopped to dwell on the amount of time that had passed since he last felt the wind flying over his face, its neutral howl tickling the scars of his skin and lips with perfectly spread stings and pinches. In a state of half-life, he was kept alert by the sensations as they ate at him, as they peeled back his fragile surface and gave breath to the layers beneath. He gasped for air, but his rebellious lungs fought to remain empty, crushing against his ribs as they shriveled and cracked. The world had become something other than itself; the air became his enemy and the empty trees were demons on the edge of his vision.
He was unable to speak, his throat too dry and ruined by his screaming rage. He had gazed into hell, he had seen it first hand—and he wanted to go there again for the sake of obtaining the ultimate legacy. He wanted not only to live, but to thrive—he would rather have been ripped asunder than to have given up halfway through his most crucial moment of victory. He was shorn away from his glorious moment by the unfounded concerns of his dear assistant, and he had been carried—half conscious—to their mutually shared hideout. The dark, cold air was a soothing reprieve from the harshly bright sunlight and merciless wind. In the emptiness, he could finally breathe again.
The cave was deep and narrow, leading over treacherous gaps and under spiked ceilings. An inexperienced spelunker could find a dozen and a half ways to die along the straight-carved path, but a ninja with knowledge of the layout could easily slither in, over and under, to find the expansive gullet of the unliving beast. Within that enormous hollow, Mamban's outpost was meticulously set up, arranged not by himself, but by Cassy and her obsessive eye for perfection.
Mamban spoke without his mask at last, finally able to get a hold of his own consciousness after it tried so hard to escape him forever. "You took it away from me," he murmured in the cave, echoes sliding between stalactites that loomed ominously above like daggers ready to fall upon the unworthy. "I'm tempted to brand you a traitor..." Mamban spoke with venom as he was on his back, laid out gingerly across a table carved from the cave-bed itself. All of the seating, desks, tables and stairs were built of stone, the whole level of the floor lowered by one story to produce enough free-standing material. There were a dozen slabs for medicinal and experimentation purposes, one of which Mamban occupied limply.
Standing over him from beside his table was the body of his closest comrade, covered in black-charred clothing and smelling like carbon and sulphur. There were still little tingles of smoke leaking up from her robe as she answered Mamban's accusation. "I did what I had to do to preserve your legacy, Master Mamban," she said, her voice as husky and sultry as ever. "They're too strong for you; too strong for any of us..." Cassy looked with her soot-covered mask toward another two tables. Goda and Seshu were laid out upon them, lifeless and cold. Goda's hand was still roughly buried in his own chest; Cassy had been unable to force it out without damaging the arm. She needed a surgical setting, which she found in their headquarters.
"My legacy means nothing without that Sharingan," Mamban said, trying to stand but having difficulty even bending at the waist to sit up. Cassy's palm was planted to his chest, gently but assertively nudging him onto his back.
"You used a lot of power; how long did you have your mark active this time?" Cassy asked, apprehensive. Although one of Mamban's arms was torn away just below the elbow, she could see that the other one was a shade darker than she remembered. His face had always been unsightly to the average eye, but she could spot individual flakes that had since cracked away and fallen to nothing. Her master was turning to ash before her very eyes, slowly but inevitably. She couldn't stop it from happening to him.
"I heard your scream," Mamban struggled to say, his lungs wanting to give up and become dirt within his body. He tried with a grunting wince to rescind the extension of his curse mark, but he couldn't do it. It was a permanent fixture along his network, as present as his veins and his own chakra points. "I heard your death, and I sought swift revenge." He tried to sit up again, and this time he was successful. Cassy didn't try to stop him. "How is it that you're alive?"
Cassy shrugged her shoulder, taking a step back from her ascending master and humming sweetly. "Oh, this?" she sassily pointed out the falling crumbles of her ruined garment. In small places, one could see through the material and to the skin beneath. She was dark of tone, but not like Mamban—it was a natural caramel color, bestowed by birth and not the sun or a curse. "The Hamasaki kid is strong, but he's not as strong as he thinks he is. His Storm Release caught me by surprise, sure, but he dumped everything he had into its blast and couldn't quite finish me off. He was close—real close." She pinched her thumb and forefinger together to signify the amount of life she had left. "I couldn't see, couldn't move, couldn't even think for a few minutes. When I got my senses back, he was out cold."
Mamban nodded, his destroyed lips curling into a sinister grin. "So you finished him off?"
Cassy cleared her throat, tucking her hand against the closed mouth of her now-blackened snake mask. "No, not really. I kept him and his little girlfriend alive," she confessed, turned away from her master. She felt his hand—his left hand, since the right was gone forever—clasp around her wrist and tenderly tug her toward facing him again. He was silent, so Cassy continued: "I figured one of us could get some use out of him, some day, some way. It'd be a terrible waste to just kill a rogue user of Storm Release. You know I don't like breaking my toys on the first play date, right?"
"So...where is he, then?" Mamban asked, his discolored eyes turned toward the woman's unmoving mask. Beneath it, she was sweating a bit. She felt his disapproval even though his face was sagging and neutral.
"I left him behind to go get you and the other two," she said, reaching her hand over to rest on top of Mamban's own affectionately, holding him to her wrist. He stood up in front of her, significantly taller than she was and looming high. He took his grip gently away from her wrist, wrapping his arm around her lower back and pulling her into a tight embrace. Cassy gasped softly as she was handled, feeling weak under Mamban's twisted affections. He brought his cauterized arm-stump up to the base of her chin to nudge the angle of her masked face up toward his.
Bending at the knees, Mamban's chapped, inhuman mouth found the slit in Cassy's mask that allowed her to easily breath, and he pressed a sinister kiss to its surface. Cassy all but melted beneath the closeness, but her shivering pleasure turned abruptly into fear as her mask literally did melt off of the front of her face, falling as a bubbling sludge down to the floor, eating into the solid stone of the cave. Her face was left behind, staring in stunned shock with her golden eyes and naturally reddened lips. Her purely black hair was kept short, bangs dangling over her forehead and just barely reaching past her eyebrows. By some miracle, all the luscious locks had stayed in place despite the searing, explosive power of Kaine's overwhelming attack.
Cassy stuttered, looking down to the ground at her destroyed mask, then back to Mamban's face, lips still puckered as he kissed the air mockingly. He spoke with a menacing air. "You tore me away from having Kakashi's eye, you failed to retrieve our Storm Release wielder, and what you have to show me instead are the lifeless bodies of two of my closest friends?"
Just like Mamban, Cassy had loved her mask—it gave her a place to hide, even though her deformities were beneath the skin and not on the surface. In appearance, she was a truly stunning kind of gorgeous, with perfectly symmetrical features. She was blessed with lush lips and bold eyes. Her nose was neither too big, nor too small, with a pleasantly sloped curve into a sharp tip. Her face was almost triangular, cheekbones visible in front of her ears in the slightest way. Cassy giggled nervously, looking under the crook of Mamban's arm to look toward Goda and Seshu. "Well, I...yes?" she answered, her face unused to being seen. She tried to smile, but it looked like a snake's open mouth, too wide and too deadly.
Mamban was the absolute contrast to her immaculate appearance; scarred, ruined, unpleasantly discolored. They averaged together into a morbidly intriguing couple. Mamban mulled over her response, lips still dripping with acid from the kiss that destroyed her mask. She looked vulnerable, and certainly felt that way as he gazed upon her, running his hand thoughtfully from her backside to the top of her shoulder and back down again. "Excellent work," Mamban concluded, leaning down to kiss her directly on the lips. Cassy tensed, wondering if he had finally lost his mind and decided that she was no longer needed. Instead of tasting acid and feeling pain, she was allowed to savor the soothing roughness of his mouth on hers, the warmth of his arm tucking her into a deeper intimacy and bending her slightly backward at the waist. She couldn't contain the sigh of relief and satisfaction that he brought out of her. Giving in to his carefully budgeted love, Cassy's eyes closed and her arms reached up to wrap around his shoulders and neck.
After a time, Mamban pulled back from her and took his arm free of her body, turning on a dime to face the lifeless forms of his former team. "Poor, poor Goda...it looks like he suffered. Seshu, on the other hand, looks like he's sleeping." Mamban narrated as he stepped closer to them both, standing between their matching tables and setting a hand on each of their shoulders. Goda's right arm was capped by his especially-precious right shoulder, which was decorated by the source of his curse mark—the font of his strength, and of his explosive punches. Mamban looked to his own ruined arm, trying to flex his fingers—he could feel the limb there, still. It was a phantom, and the sensation was already driving him more insane than he already knew he was.
"Cassy, my precious, most favored companion..." he addressed, looking to her with a devious smirk. "Come here, would you?" he beckoned her, lifting his right arm's stump and flexing his non-existent finger as if to curl it inward. Cassy obeyed the words, even if she didn't fully comprehend his odd gesture. She stood at his side, dutifully crossing her arms behind her back and looking up to him with her cruel grin.
"What's on your mind, master?" she asked him, head tilted languidly and her hips wagging gently. She was still on high after the elongated kiss they had shared. When she wasn't being directed to look elsewhere, she was allowing herself to be mesmerized by Mamban's terrifying bare face.
"Goda, rest his soul, has something I want..." he began, caressing his slain partner's shoulder, complete with its mark. "I'd like you to give it to me. The whole arm."
Cassy blinked. "Is that a good idea? We don't know if it will work that way..." she started, but trailed off when Mamban brought his left hand up to make a shushing gesture over his own lips.
"It's worth the effort," he told her. "Orochimaru's ultimate goal was to cultivate separate marks on numerous people, all on different body parts. The end result was going to be a combination of all of them into a single being. We've come this far on the merits of his research and experiments...should we shun them at this late hour?" Mamban didn't wait for Cassy's answer, clutching an unsheathed sword off of a nearby shelf, biting his teeth together and giving his own arm a slice right at the shoulder joint, dropping the half-gone limb to the floor with a wet thud.
Cassy sighed, looking huffy as her proverbial hand was forced, nodding begrudgingly. "Well, since you went and did that, you'll probably bleed to death if I don't do something about it..." She hated to see him destroy himself, but she couldn't fault the results he tended to get. Up until his battle with Kakashi, a true legend, the curse-improved Mamban was undefeated in combat.
Mamban winked, his eyelid fragile but sly as it plinked against its counterpart. "Good girl," he praised.
Cassy rolled her eyes at that, equal parts loving and hating Mamban for his manic methods. "Alright...but before you go lopping your left leg off too, let me check that Seshu's still in the condition to be used..." she murmured, looking at Mamban and teasingly throwing her own awkward wink toward her superior. She got on the side of Seshu's body, taking a close look at his wound. She dug her fingers into the gap in his chest between the ribs, searching for the through-line of the penetration. She blinked, narrowing her eyes and furrowing her brows with confusion. "He's full of ice," she said in befuddlement as her fingers emerged with a lining of bloody coldness.
Mamban nodded, his hand cupping the open wound a few inches beside his neck, blood oozing out with every beat of his exhausted heart. "Yes, my dear, he's always been full of something," he played around with no sense of urgency.
Cassy shook her head. "No, I mean...he's completely frozen inside. He hasn't even lost any blood through here..." she flexed her fingers at her side, forming a few precise strings of chakra which she used to probe along her partner's pierced heart. The blade had gone in clean and come out just the same. The organ was penetrated, but all the pieces were still there. With careful weaving, she threaded the gap closed over the course of a few tense minutes using her energy. Mamban stood there, unmoving as he watched. Although he wasn't the most hopeful of sorts, something of a nihilist in fact, he was still curious as to what his lover was on about.
"Come thaw him," Cassy requested, holding her strings in place with the pull of her chakra, using them as highly temporary stitches.
Mamban snickered, taking his bloody fist away from his nonexistent shoulder to allow his hand to heat up, using one half of the elements used to create his acid—fire licked at the edges of his fingers, and he reached those scalding-hot digits into the wound to first melt the ice, and second sear the string-work permanently together. "You're ever the hopeful, optimistic one, aren't—"
Before Mamban could finish his thought, Seshu's vacant eyes flicked open and his throat drew in a huge breath, inflating his lungs and returning some color to his icy flesh. The gasp was loud and desperate, as if he had been trying to breathe for hours but just barely unable to do it until that final culmination. His eyes bulged wide and their pristine emptiness was marred by red veins stretching from the corners, his lids puffy and red from the dryness of near-death. He woke up swinging, shouting. "I've got you now, you bastar—"
Seshu was about to knock Cassy in the mouth with a hard right swing of his fist, but he stopped short and looked at his hand, then his chest. He could feel the sting of burned flesh, could smell himself cooking. "You aren't Kinoe...I was dead, wasn't I?" he asked, flexing his hands, breathing as hard as he could. He was a man resurrected, and it felt a lot more sluggish than rejuvenating.
"Dead as could be," Mamban replied, nodding. Seshu had seen him without the mask before, but it still gave him a grimace as he saw the uncensored ugliness. Mamban caught the look, but he wasn't offended. He spoke with a tad of regret. "Goda, however, is quite a bit deader than that."
Seshu tsked, looking to the operating table on his other side. "I knew that was going to happen...he underestimated Kakashi Hatake and paid the price. What an idiot."
Cassy cleared her throat, raising a single finger. "Didn't you underestimate Kinoe and end up dead, too?"
Seshu sneered, looking to the younger woman with clenched teeth. "You could say that, but I'm still alive," he growled out.
"How'd that happen, anyway?" Cassy asked, touching a condescending finger to the man's bright white nose.
Seshu crossed his eyes, too disoriented to retaliate against the poke. "Kinoe was quick, stuck his blade right through my heart when I tried to freeze him up. I couldn't devote enough chakra to freeze him, but I managed to finish my sign and freeze myself from the inside to stop the wound from becoming fatal. Though, staying alive longer than that kind of depended on your help, Cassy," he admitted, looking down to his repaired hole. "I doubt a typical surgeon would've been able to put me back together in time."
"You're lucky I survived, then," she chided, giving him a harsh punch to the back of the head. "Next time, don't come so close to dying in the first place. Mamban and I were already mourning the both of you."
Seshu rubbed the back of his head, even though he was still too numb from the freeze to feel the actual pain of impact. The throbbing at his chest would have been ludicrously intense if not for the icy anesthesia. He decided that it was best to keep himself on ice for a while, and laid himself back down on the cold cave table. "A shame about Goda, but he was always the weakest of us..."
Mamban shook his head, raising a finger. "No, not weak...merely unwilling to exert his gifts. I think a better word choice would be 'timid.' He refused to play by our rules, and Kakashi likely turned that hesitation against him."
"What happened to your arm...and your mask?" Seshu asked to Mamban, looking over the mangled man, then turning to Cassy. "And your mask? Did you at least grab mine while you got me out of there?"
Cassy tucked her hand beneath the back of her head. "Not a lot of time to think about masks, I was still half-dead and Master Mamban was about to get sucked into some kind of demon vortex...so my priorities were skewed around."
Seshu sighed, closing his eyes and reaching his hands up to fold behind his head. It hurt to move, but he hated resting his head on flat stone. "Whatever, I probably shouldn't have taken it off anyway."
Mamban finally called attention back to his lingering desires. "Though I'm overjoyed that you weren't taken from us, Seshu, I have a great need for Cassy's expert services...do try to avoid distracting her while she fulfills the transplant."
Seshu perked an eye open. "Transplant? You mean Goda's arm?" He blinked, then looked urgently down to his left leg, feeling around with his hand, expecting to find a stump. He sighed with relief when he saw that it was still there. He also realized that he had no feeling whatsoever beneath the waist. He kind of hoped that it was a temporary thing. "Yeah alright, go for it. I'm sure he'd want you to have it."
Mamban and Cassy both nodded, going in tandem to the deceased man who had once worn a yellow mask. The leader spoke up, running his good hand across Goda's forehead. "I'll carry your spirit into battle, old friend...the man who did this to you will pay, one way or another." Beside him, Cassy was already making preparations, folding her puppet threads through the specially carved holes in a few select surgical tools, lacing them together and letting her threads serve as her own assistant.
"Alright, Master," she said. "Lie down and try not to feel the pain you're about to feel...and let's hope this even works. I don't think we can afford to lose you right now. You're the only one keeping Susumu from slaughtering all of our soldiers in his village."
"He's right to fear me," Mamban said with self-satisfaction. "After this successful operation, I will go to see what he thinks of it all."
Seshu spoke, one eye still perked open. "You might want to put another mask on. I doubt if Susumu's people are ready to see you for what you really are."
Mamban chuckled, wincing from the agony as Cassy began to tool around with his flesh, preparing his joint, veins, and nerves to be merged with the cursed limb quickly amputated off of Goda's body. She carved away the ribs and muscle that held the dead man's hand in place, delicately handling the intact arm and nursing it with her hovering strings, laying it into place against Mamban's crumbling husk. With luck, the relatively fresh limb replacement would give his body some time, but Cassy knew better than to think that her master would have a long, full life ahead of him.
They had all been living on borrowed time since choosing to abandon the orders of Lord Danzo Shimura. Cassy thought for a moment that Goda was actually quite lucky that he wouldn't live to see it all come crashing down around them.
Tito had been doing as Medo asked of him, keeping an eye on every soldier that arrived in a mask and a robe. He wasn't very smart and didn't even know what he was supposed to be looking for, but he did his duty every time he went to the food stores for another meal. That was where he met everybody—all the residents of the village ate at different times, but Tito was almost always there, chowing down on another helping of the decadent dishes prepared for them. With an overflow of supplies from who-knew-where, some of the more enthusiastic members of the Truth Village were experimenting with cooking fresh recipes.
Filling a plate in front of Tito was an arrangement of sliced apples, strawberries, and bananas all lined with a crushed paste of almonds and cooked to a pleasant warmth. The fruits were made a bit mushy by the heat, and some had suggested that the texture was off-putting, but Tito was sure to eat any of the experiments that failed. A living garbage disposal. Medo appeared from around a corner, quickly hopping into the wooden stump that served as a chair across from Tito at the same table.
"See anything lately?" Medo asked, resting his elbow on the wooden surface in front of him.
"Nope, sorry Medo-sensei," Tito murmured between licks of his fingers. "They just kind of stand around."
Medo sighed, rubbing both of his cheeks with frustrated hands. "Yep, that's what I've seen, too. I know they're up to something, standing around like they're keeping watch on us."
"Aren't they supposed to be protecting us?" Tito questioned, looking to his recently-appointed teacher with inquisitive eyes.
"Maybe, but that's not what it feels like to me. It feels like we're being monitored, not protected. Just be careful around these mummies, got it?" Medo reached over the long table, patting Tito's muscular shoulder with one ounce of approval. "If things get out of hand, we're going to need your help."
As Tito nodded to Medo's encouragement, Minoru approached the pair, a clone that was mistaken for the real thing as always. "Be careful with what you say, good Medo," he said in his calming tone, arms crossed over his torso in a state of perpetual zen. "They do not act on their senses, but they do possess ears."
Medo perked a brow. "What, I can't even be suspicious?"
Minoru shook his head, the mask that covered his eyes staying firmly planted over his features. "Suspicions are quite necessary, but please do your best not to vocalize them. If you have concerns, you should come to see me in my chambers rather than spread gossip among the students."
Tito seemed entirely oblivious to being mentioned, still hammering down an assortment of mushy fruit. Minoru couldn't help but smile—a peaceful mind like Tito's was the ideal that he had always wanted for everybody. No worries, no cares in the world. Minoru's only regret was that to achieve his dream, many others would have to die to make room. He could not trust the world to keep their hands out of the tranquility, and so he would need to strike first and cut those hands off. Perhaps not total annihilation, but a powerful message.
"Sorry, Master Minoru," Medo grumbled, picking up a long piece of jerky that probably came off the hip of a deer. "I'll try to keep the kids uninformed." There was a bit of snark in that reply, but its disobedience was insincere—Medo was fully loyal, and Susumu's eyes could read it in his body language, both inside and out.
Minoru spoke with a soft hum. "I appreciate your concerns, but I have everything under control. With luck, this occupation will not last much longer."
Medo chuckled openly, tsking. "Now who's forgetting to be careful what he says?"
Minoru's face was flat and expressionless, then, changing the subject. "Tests are coming up," he declared as something of a warning. "I do hope your students have been prepared adequately for what's around the corner."
Medo nodded. "Yeah, all but this guy here," he said with a casual point of his thumb toward Tito. "I'm gonna suggest that you let him sit it out."
Minoru shook his head. "We have no use for dead weight anymore, Medo. We aren't trying to gain numbers for the sake of numbers. We're weeding out the weakness, trimming the fat, becoming efficient. If he is unprepared, he will die."
Tito, still oblivious, was starting on a fresh plate. Medo sighed, cupping his hands over his face with exasperation. "What does that really prove, though? I'm telling you right now that he's got no worth as a shinobi. If anything, send him back home to wherever he came from. There's no sense even trying to test somebody against him, because they'll crush him and it won't prove that they're strong."
Minoru nodded. "Your concerns are noted...and now I have a test in mind for the both of you."
Medo tilted his head. "Both of us? I don't think I like the sound of that."
"Are you questioning my judgement?" Minoru asked, calm and direct as always. It was the ease of his speech that made the confrontation so spine-tingling for Medo. The older teacher had no idea how Tito could keep stuffing his face through it all; the young-adult who acted like a kid must have been hard of hearing.
"I'd never question you, Master Minoru, just...I want to make sure that Tito isn't needlessly thrown out to be slaughtered." Medo said as he chewed a strip off the long, dry meat in his left hand. "He doesn't even know his affinity, yet."
Minoru tsked. "That is quite the shame, Medo. Come with me, and bring him along. I've decided to test you both immediately."
Medo blinked, finishing his jerky with a single, long bite, coiling the flexible rope up like a snake on his tongue. He snapped his fingers in front of Tito's face, getting his attention. Tito was ripped out of a feeding frenzy, a dribble of strawberry juice trickling down his chiseled chin. How he ate so much and stayed so muscular was a perpetual mystery to everybody he knew. "Wha's up sensei?" the newbie asked, having entirely missed the discussion about his very fate.
"Come on, kid, we've gotta appease the overlord." Medo snapped his fingers again, standing up and jogging to follow Minoru as the latter began to walk off, assuming he would be obeyed. Tito reluctantly stood up to follow as well, carrying his newest, fullest bowl along with him.
They arrived on the training field an hour before noon, giving them time before the village-wide lessons began. Mamban's faceless, wordless soldiers lined the perimeter, but made no action to stop the three from passing toward the large, rectangular battle arena near the center of the layout. "Enter," Minoru instructed, waving a hand toward the field. Medo and Tito looked to one another, then to Minoru, and both nodded obediently before taking their places on the two chalky lines drawn into the sandy ground.
Minoru folded his hands together, making a sign to erect a smaller, visible version of the barrier that surrounded the Truth. It formed on all sides and came together at the top as a flat ceiling, confining master and student into a cube as Minoru watched from the outside. He spoke loudly and clearly, though he maintained his typical flat tone. "Medo—your test is to kill Tito."
Tito blinked, looking toward Minoru and then toward his sensei. "He's not serious, is he?"
"I really doubt he's serious," Medo said, looking to Minoru with a curved eyebrow.
Without hesitation, Minoru addressed their concerns. "I'm quite serious. Medo, you are to kill Tito immediately."
Medo looked to Minoru for another moment, considering a myriad of protests. He wanted to disobey the order, but something inside of him told him to remain perfectly loyal. It was an itchy feeling under his chin, a slight tingle that danced over his scalp. A lot of little things all added together into one singular thought—obey Master Minoru no matter what. A long moment passed, Tito's face sweating and his jaw tight with worry.
Medo shrugged his shoulders and cracked his neck to loosen up—the manipulative poison lacing the food had at last resettled into his system. Although Medo himself was not aware of it, Minoru's test was a spur of the moment decision to establish that the loyalty had been artificially restored inside of all of his people. Medo had gone the longest of all of them without eating, and he had then been particularly vocal against the needless sacrifices.
Shoved into perfect loyalty by the undetectable poison in his system, Medo finally nodded once, ignoring Tito's fearful hands raised in his own defense. The young man with no confidence backed up—he was trying to escape, but the barrier stopped him at the border of the field. Medo spoke casually after spitting on the ground, suddenly having no regrets or misgivings. Minoru had not minced his words. "Sorry, kid. Orders are orders." Medo took a step forward...
…
…
…
"It's kind of a shame," Medo said with a quiet sigh toward Minoru, laying a rock out near the others in the semi-hidden grove nestled near the training field. "I was really starting to like that kid." He closed his eyes briefly, forming a symbol of respect with both of his hands after setting the stone down. "So that he'll always be remembered," Medo murmured with reverent ceremony, kneeling down in front of the naturally shaped rock and affectionately carving the name 'Tito' upon its front face with the sharp point of his kunai.
"Always remembered," Minoru echoed gently from beside his kneeling subordinate, hands together in front of his chest. He was very satisfied by the results of his impromptu test.
Thanks for reading. The next chapter is coming soon. Leave a review if you want to, I love reading them all.
