Chapter 29: The Fear of Death
Sayo could feel herself starting to pass out as the Hoshi nin strangled her. He let up one hand on her neck but only to pull out a glass container holding some kind of dark yellow vapor. "This is gas from Hoshi's canyon, a natural vapor that is quite toxic. It's almost like breathing a weak version of cyanide. Have a whiff Spitter." He uncorked it and shoved the opening into Sayo's mouth.
"Sayo!" Masa screamed, struggling to break free of Takuma's Kujaku arms.
Takuma took the vial out of the girl's mouth and grinned. "Any last words?"
Sayo smiled. "Yeah. I eat cyanide for breakfast."
'By now she should be drowning in her own blood from the poison. How is she not?' Takuma asked himself. With his free hand, he pulled out a kunai. "Then try eating this!" He shoved it down to her face. By sheer luck, Sayo caught it with her teeth, but she was struggling to keep him from driving it deeper.
For a brief moment her grip with her teeth slipped, allowing the kunai to be driven deeper before she caught it again. Now the tip was pressing into her uvula. But that wasn't the worst part. 'Oh no, my gag reflex. If I can't control it, this guy will have no trouble stabbing all the way thru.' Sayo tried her hardest to suppress the need to gag, but it was getting to be too much. 'I can't... I'm going to die. Not now, I have so much I want to do. Please Kami, don't let me die.'
Takuma grinned, seeing her frightened expression. Then all of a sudden, he stopped. "What the hell?" With no pressure on the kunai, Sayo got it out of her mouth and Takuma did nothing to stop it. "It can't be. What the hell are you?"
'I have no idea what he's talking about, but I'm not going to let him kill me.' The pigtailed girl told herself. "You like making others taste poison? Try it yourself!" With that, she reached up and tore off his gas mask, exposing him to the poison vapors Sayo had already released.
Takuma immediately covered his mouth, releasing his Kujaku jutsu without realizing it allowing Masa to get back on his feet. He immediately helped Sayo get back on hers. "Is he going to die from this poison?"
Sayo nodded. "It's likely. The Poison Fog Jutsu isn't just for show." She looked at him, but he froze up. "What's wrong?"
"Your eyes. They changed."
Noyumi was still attacking Hanabi and Kakashi with her own Kujaku cloak, keeping them both at bay. But Noyumi could see they now had a plan, and was waiting to see what they did. Both kept their distance, where Hanabi was at a disadvantage but Kakashi would be alert and able to respond with an appropriate jutsu at a moment's notice.
Thanks to her byakugan, Hanabi easily saw her three students come to the room. "Akane! Noburo! Ichi! Get to my side now!" she shouted when they reached the doorway.
They paused for a moment, not expecting this site, but it passed and the the three genin rushed to their sensei. "What's goign on?" Ichi asked.
"Apparently our Hoshi friends here are on the other need to stop them. Ichi, you go help Tatsu with his problem. Noburo and Akane-chan, you help me and Kakashi out. But don't kill her, we need to see how deep this goes and for that we need the two Hoshi nin alive."
They nodded, but Noburo looked around. "Where are Masa and Sayo?"
"They're handling their own fight. Until we end this one, we can't help them." Hanabi said as she did another Rotation. 'I can't keep that up much longer. I've probably got enough left in me for one at most. Kakashi, I'd really prefer it if you started playing offensively now.'
Kakashi so far had been using some strange kind of wind jutsu where wind swirled around his hand, allowing him to deflect Noyumi's strikes but so far that seemed to be all he was doing. His sharingan was exposed allowing him to see all her attacks and react accordingly, but he had yet to attack back.
Ichi went to assist Tatsu, who went inside the other room while Akane and Noburo got positions by the Hyuuga heiress. Noburo took off his hita-ate, allowing his hair to grow out. Akane however looked impatient, and rushed up to besides Kakashi. "Cover me Kakashi-sensei."
"Akane wait!" The cycloptic jounin said, but he couldn't stop her.
Akane ran up to Noyumi, armed with , she cocked a fist and jumped up, driving a solid punch right to Noyumi's cheek. The punch felt like she had been hit by a cannonball, sending the older kunoichi flying back and leaving a crater in the wall she crashed into.
"Whoa." Kakashi said in awe.
Akane smiled and turned back. "Don't forget I learned a lot from Baa-chan too."
"I better go check my students. Keep her down if you can." Kakashi said before going to the closed door that separated him from Sayo and Masa.
Hanabi and Noburo came up beside the redhead. "Nice job Akane-chan. Now we should tie her up." Hanabi said.
"Not so fast." Noyumi said, spitting out some blood. "That was a good hit, I'll give you that, but my chakra cloak took the brunt of it, so i can keep fighting." She tried to reform her Kujaku cloak.
Hanabi immediately acted. "Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms." She hit all of Noyumi's tenketsu, canceling out the Kujaku method. "That is an impressive chakra you have, but it's still chakra and thus vulnerable to my methods. Noburo, Akane, tie her up."
Noyumi squirmed and groaned, but her Kujaku cloak slowly started to reform around her. "Nice try bitch."
Hanabi was definitely surprised. 'How is she...? Is this like when Naruto-oniisan fought Neji-oniisan ten years ago and he used his second chakra source to undo any juuken hits? I didn't think his technique could do the same thing.'
Akane glared and started to project her red chakra cloak, with no tail formations, making her sensei and teammate step back defensively. "Let's see who has the stronger chakra."
Needless to say, Noyumi was more than a little intimidated.
Tatsu had his swarm out and on standby. The woman before him had made no attack but she was activating several traps. 'Already she's used a crossbow, a net, a trapdoor, and senbon launchers in the wall. I think it's safe to say she's paranoid.'
Right now this woman was wielding a spear, looking frightened. "I warn ye child to leave me and this place or else be damned by my hand!"
"Are you the one behind all this? Are you the one they refer to as Batsumori?" Tatsu asked. 'She's the only woman here not a prisoner, so it's logical to assume she has a role here.'
The woman glared. "That is Riza Batsumori-sama to you cretin!"
Tatsu subtly shook his head. "I see no reason to call someone orchestrating a mass kidnapping by such an honorific."
"What's going on?" Ichi asked as he came in, avoiding the already triggered booby traps.
"I think she's the one in charge here." The Aburame told the dark-haired boy.
Batsumori looked at the door. "Why are my guards not coming forth?"
Ichi smiled. "Took them out already. My teammate handled them all, caught by surprise." Akane used several dozen clones to incapacitate the guards fearing any silent alarms would or had been triggered. "Your operations are top notch, as long as you aren't under attack. Why is that?"
"If the guards I employed are too feeble to stand up to children that is their own fault. I will just acquire more after this skirmish."
Tatsu looked uncomfortable. As an Aburame, such callous disregard for the ones helping you was taboo to him. "You are out of support and your two ninja guards will soon be defeated. You will be brought to justice for your crimes against your victims."
"Why did you kidnap so many girls anyway?" Ichi asked, readying himself to use a jutsu at any moment.
Batsumori glared. "Like I'm going to tell yo-ugh!" She stiffened and widened her eyes. "No, not now! Not now!" She clutched her heart with her right hand and held up her left hand to look at it. In the light Ichi and Tatsu could see it start to get pale and wrinkled. "Damn you for waking me." She told the boys while reaching for a glass container of red liquid. She opened it and swiftly downed the contents, making her hand return to normal. If anything, she actually got a little younger, close to eighteen years old now.
"What did you just do?" Ichi asked.
"I extended my own live, and now I shall end your own." Batsumori said before charging at them with her spear.
"What do you mean my eyes changed?" Sayo asked.
Before Masa could answer, Takuma's strained voice cut him off. "Summoning Jutsu." The two genin looked to see him summon a bear. He coughed up some blood. "Your poison may... have worked on me... but it won't on him." He then slumped over, breathing like he couldn't get any oxygen in his lungs.
"That explains where the bear tracks came from." Masa said, getting his two swords out if front. The bear swung a paw and Masa used his sword to block it, cutting the paw. Now it was mad.
The door opened and Kakashi came in. "Masa, Sayo, are you-?" He was cut off by the escaping poison fog. Thankfully his mask kept it mostly out of his system. The bear roared and he immediately started up a chidori. Running forward, he thrust the electric blade right into the bear's back. The summoned animal roared in pain then dispelled. "Are you two 'cough cough' okay?"
"We're fine. Thanks Kakashi-sensei." Sayo said.
Kakashi smiled, until he saw her eyes. "What the...? How is that possible?"
"What's wrong?"
Kakashi did a genjutsu release, but nothing happened. "Sayo, I don't know how, but... apparently you have a doujutsu."
"Hanabi-sensei, should we help her?" Noburo asked as Akane was brawling with Noyumi. By now he had unsealed his scissor sword from a supply scroll he had on him, something he learned from Tenten.
"When I know how we can I'll let you know." She told the blue-haired boy as she watched the two.
Noyumi tried a beast manifestation of her Kujaku cloak, creating a violet chakra wolf that pounced at Akane. The redhead was undaunted and tore right thru it. She swiped her claws, creating a few cuts on Noyumi's outfit.
'It looks like Akane-chan's bijuu chakra is stronger than her star chakra.' Hanabi thought.
Noyumi stepped back and reached into her pockets. She pulled out two seal tags with unclear designs. "Taste this!" She threw them when Akane was too close to dodge. From one seal burst a round of lightning and from the other a stream of water at the same time. The combination was dangerous even to Akane.
Akane screamed bloody murder as she was electrocuted, her chakra cloak being the only think keeping the dangerous combo from stopping her heart. She stopped moving except to convulse and collapse on the floor as her red aura dissipated much like the poison gas from the other room already had.
"Akane-chan!" Both Hanabi and Noburo shouted.
Noyumi stood over the redhead victoriously. "Who's next?"
Noburo stepped forward, ready to strike with his blade. "You know that the girls here are suffering, and I heard even one of your own was made a prisoner here. Why for the love of Kami are you supporting this?"
"Simple kid, I don't want to die. Learning the Kujaku arts shaved years off my life and being a kunoichi doesn't exactly ensure I'll have any golden years later on. Batsumori-sama promised me that if I worked for her I'd be given a way to live forever and I accepted. If that means someone else has to die so I don't, well I can live with that. Call me a monster if you want, but I'll still be able to sleep at night."
"You are a monster!" Hanabi shouted, getting into her juuken stance. "And how are you certain her promise has any value?"
"I of course asked for proof. Batsumori-sama uses the blood of the kidnapped girls to stay young. As young as the girls who provide it. She just needs to ingest a good amount of it one a month and she can stay young forever."
Noburo arched an eyebrow. "And has she shared this with anyone else? Even you?"
"No, but that's only because it currently only works for those with water element chakra like her and none of us here have that. Once she finds a way to change that she'll share it with us." Noyumi told them.
"I doubt that." Masa's voice was heard saying from the doorway. Noyumi turned to see Kakashi, Masa, and Sayo standing there. Masa had his swords out while Sayo was armed with a single blood-cover kunai and Kakashi had nothing. "Your partner said the goons here only targeted girls with water element chakra. If your leader was trying to change this death-cheating thing, why not take girls with other types?"
"Sounds to me like she was just using you all to keep herself young and never planned to give you a taste of it." Kakashi commented. 'Reminds me of Gato who never intended to pay Zabuza for his work. I could see this woman stringing people along promising something she'll never give.'
Noyumi glared like it would kill them all and readied one more Kujaku method. "Ninja Art Kujaku-" Before she could finish, Sayo threw her kunai. Normally the Kujaku cloak would repel weaker chakra-based attacks, but this kunai had no chakra in it so it passed thru the cloak and embedded itself in her right shoulder. "Nice try girl, but one kunai wouldn't be enough to kill me." The Hoshi kunoichi said as she paused her jutsu to remove the weapon.
"One kunai covered in my blood is more than enough." Sayo said with a smile.
"Why is that?"
"I'm a Shichou, a member of Konoha's poisonous clan. My blood is toxic, almost as strong as black widow spider venom. In fact all my bodily fluids are toxic too. My sweat, my tears, my spit, even my urine, are all toxic. You should be feeling the effects right about now." Sayo explained.
As predicted, Noyumi lurched and became unbalanced, looking like she was in pain.
Kakashi looked at his student. "Nice job Sayo, but can you provide her an antidote? We need at least one of them alive." She nodded and went to the ailing enemy, reaching into her supply pouch to get an antidote.
Hanabi turned around, wondering how Ichi and Tatsu were doing, and saw the two come out of the room with a blinded and chakra-drained Batsumori. "We got her Hanabi-sensei. She's the one in charge of all this." Ichi called out.
The Hyuuga heiress smiled. "Looks like we're finished here then."
