"Hello, friend!"
Bolt grimaced as the words rang through his skull like thunder. He hadn't even opened his eyes and he was in more pain than he had ever remembered being in. Peeking through his eyelashes, he saw a swarthy man with bronzed skin and a thick black beard smiling down at him.
He hadn't ever wanted to murder a man more than he did at the moment. How dare he drag him kicking and screaming from the warm, dark oblivion of his dreams? He was so comfortable, and now he was in agony.
Bolt groaned and leaned forward to sit up.
Pain coursed through his chest like the lightning had before he mastered the Lightning Armor. His entire body screamed in agony. Bolt flailed backwards, gasping for breath as he recovered from the shock. "Easy, friend," the man said, again, in that thick Land of Wind accent. "Your ribs are more crooked than the Wind Lord's court," he jested with a small chuckle.
Bolt didn't think it was that funny. "Yes, you took quite the beating I'd say. Found you wandering the dunes in the badlands half delirious with your friends on your back. Very dangerous place. Very hot. No water. Lots of snakes and scorpions. Not a place for foreigners," the man said, lifting a skin of water to his lips.
Bolt drank greedily, and his previous anger was forgotten. He hadn't thought water could taste so good. "Where are my friends?" Bolt asked, sighing in relief now that he had slaked his thirst.
"Oh, the big man is outside. Little girl is sleeping," the man answered, pointing to where Hikari was slumbering in a dark corner of the tent they were in. She looked as if she had seen better days. Her black hair was mangled and matted with blood and sand, and it hung loosely to her shoulders. Her right arm was wrapped in a thick cast of sandy brown bandages.
Bolt returned his eyes to their apparent savior. "My name is—" he considered lying, but he didn't know how much either Hikari or Tetsu had said. So he didn't. "My name is Bolt. Thank you saving us. Where are we? Who are you?"
The questions poured from his lips. The man smiled down at him, revealing pearly white teeth that contrasted with his inky black beard. "I'm Shūichi. You're in the middle of the badlands, so the where is difficult to say. We're a few miles from Tottori. Shouldn't take our caravan more than a few days to get there," the man—Shūichi—said.
That only created more questions. For one, why did a few miles of travel—to the nearest city, no less—take several days? He could run the breadth or width of the Land of Fire in a single day if he didn't stop to rest.
Normal people, he scoffed.
But Bolt had other things on his mind. He needed time to heal, and so did his friends. Then, Sage of Six Paths willing, they could begin their investigation into what had been killing people along the northern border of the Land of Wind and Earth. With a great strength of will, Bolt pulled himself into a sitting position.
The movement made every fiber of his being scream in agony, but he did it. Bolt blinked the spots in his vision away as the pain receded like the tide. From his new vantage point, he could see that the bed he lay in was little more than a pile of old, dirty rags and the tent was crudely made from dried twigs and a leathery tarp that wasn't even staked to the ground. Wind kicked up the tarp and blew hot air and sand into the small pavilion.
Bolt groaned. This was not a hygienic place for healing. He probably contracted some form of disease that hadn't afflicted ninja since the warring clans era. His groan woke Hikari, who started at the sudden noise. Her right hand instantly slid towards the poaches at her waist, only to grasp at nothing. Old habits died hard. It would take her time to adjust to the seals he had placed on the palms of her hands.
He could imagine her blinking sleepily behind her mask as her mind took in their surroundings. Then, she stood and stalked over to him. Her boots kicked up sand in wispy clouds that were quickly blown away by the wind as she walked. Bolt looked up at her from his pile of rags and saw a grim determination in her eyes.
"Your fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh ribs are fractured on your right side, and your second and third on your left. Your sternum was also fractured in two places. I've been doing my best to patch you up, but you need a doctor. One more skilled than me. It's taken all my skill just to keep you alive this long," Hikari said.
Bolt swallowed as she explained the severity of his injuries. He had always known Sarada had a strong right hook, but this was something else. She had really held nothing back at the end. And it nearly killed him. Bolt could only pray that her mother had taught her some medical ninjutsu, or they would have been bringing him back in a body bag.
"How long have I been out?" Bolt asked. He needed to know how long it had been since they escaped from his retrieval team. Then he could plan his next move.
Hikari tilted her head to the side. "I put you in a medically induced coma while I healed your pulmonary contusion and stabilized your flail chest. That was three days ago. I only woke up five days ago," she answered.
Bolt turned to eye their savior. Shūichi was doing his best to give the two of them their privacy, idling near the tent flap and looking outside. As the wind blew, Bolt could see other tents, milling men and women, and the sandy-colored fur of camels. "Shūichi," he called. "How long ago did you find us?"
Shūichi started, then turned and strode back to them with a spring in his step. "Oh, must've been at least two weeks now," he said, looking between the two of them with interest. "If you'd be wanting a doctor, the best round these parts would be ol' Doc Sawbones. Couldn't help but overhear," he explained with a sheepish grin. "Runs a clinic up in Tottori, best in the business."
"I doubt this doctor," Hikari said, with clear distaste. "Would be skilled enough to perform an operation of this calibre without killing his patient."
Shūichi just grinned. "Ol' Sawbones is the best doctor we've got out here," he said. "She used to be a Sand ninja some folk say. She must've retired years and years ago. No one knows why she left the village and moved to the middle of the badlands. We don't question it too much, though. She always patches us up right and doesn't ask questions so long as we pay her. Should be good enough for yourselves, right? A ninja doctor for a ninja."
Bolt stilled. Shūichi knew. He knew he shouldn't have given his real name. "How did you know?" Bolt asked. He had to be sure. He couldn't make the same mistake again.
"How did I know? Who you were?" Shūichi asked, clear confusion written on his face. Bolt nodded.
"Why! You're famous, of course!" Shūichi declared, fishing a crumpled length of parchment from the folds of his vest. He handed it over to Bolt without hesitation. "The boys n' I been wondering if you'd come down to these parts. We've been readin' bout your exploits in the Land of Rain since the newspapers started printing. Course, they're difficult to get out here but we make do with what we can."
The paper was a wanted flier. It had a picture of him from the Union's tournament. Below it, in large black letters, were the words he both desired and dreaded to hear. "Wanted! Dead or Alive: Bolt Uzumaki," it read. Below, it told that he was an extremely dangerous S-rank criminal—the first to earn the infamous title since Sasuke Uchiha—and hailed from the Leaf. There was a brief summary of his skills, but nothing specific. No mention of his Lightning Armor, no mention of his Rasengan, and no mention of his sealing jutsu.
The Union had been given shoddy intel, or had been willfully ignorant of his growth in power. Both were to his advantage. The former was especially interesting. If the Union was given bad intel, who had given it to them? Who had risked their career to give him that slight edge?
That was the question.
But the flier brought another question to his mind, one far more dangerous and pressing. If Shūichi knew who he was, and had all three of their unconscious bodies at his mercy, why didn't he turn them over to the authorities? His bounty was... "Fifty million ryō?" Bolt read, aloud.
"Yes, quite the sum," Shūichi agreed with a nod of his head.
"Then why didn't you collect it?" Bolt asked, wincing as he adjusted his torso to be more comfortable.
Shūichi laughed. "I can't," he answered. Bolt noted that he said he can't rather than he wouldn't. "The guards at all the collection stations would kill me on sight."
"Why?" Bolt asked, his brows furrowing.
"Because," Tetsu spoke, holding the flap of the tent aloft. "We're in the company of a band of thieves."
Kohaku was an interesting man, Sarada decided. He looked young, but wasn't. When she first met him, she thought he was only a few years older than her. Maybe in his early to middle twenties. It came as quite the surprise when he had to correct them, stating that he was nearing his late thirties.
That was Uzumaki blood for you.
Sarada peered over his shoulder as he drew symbols on Himawari's pale skin ever so slightly. The sealing arts were something she couldn't wrap her head around, even with her Sharingan. She could see the chakra, see the way it was woven and formed, see how it was applied. But she couldn't copy it, and she couldn't understand it.
It was interesting.
"Feel anything?" Kohaku asked Himawari. Her friend shook her head. Nothing. No progress. Even after three days.
Kohaku sighed deeply and withdrew his brush. "Having troubles?" Sarada asked with a small grin.
"It's always difficult to decode someone else's script," Kohaku said. "But it's doubly so for this because it is so well encrypted. It matches nothing in any of the scrolls I've read, and it doesn't respond to any of the traditional methods of accessing its core functions."
"Bolt was a genius," Sarada told him.
"He's still a genius, if this is anything to go by," he grumbled, picking up his brush and writing a few more characters. Sarada watched as the painted ink glowed a beautiful azure color. "You'd think a seal like this would have more defensive formulas if it was designed to control you. But it doesn't react to anything I try. It only resists being removed. Feel anything?"
Himawari shook her head again. Kohaku tossed his brush aside and sat back in his seat as he crossed his arms.
But his words sparked an idea in Sarada's mind. Her memories of the end of the fight were muddled. The pain would do that to you. But she remembered a few things. She remembered being afraid. Afraid of bolt, and how much he had changed. How dark he had become in the short few years he had been away. They had been friends since childhood, just like their mothers and fathers. She knew he couldn't have changed that much, no matter what he had done or seen.
Maybe that was it.
"Try," Sarada said, pausing to think a moment. She didn't know how to word her idea. "Try treating it like a seal that isn't trying to control us. Something—something..."
"Something more beneficial," Kohaku finished for her. "Right, couldn't hurt. Certain seals would remain inert, even in the face of probing," he said, picking up his brush once more. "But that doesn't make sense. He told you it was a—"
Himawari stiffened, and Sarada's eyes zeroed in on the seal on her neck. It glowed a dark crimson color and the arms of the whirlpool shifted and writhed as they grew until the small whirlpool was nothing but a large black dot on the small of her friend's neck. "Feel anything?" Kohaku uttered, quickly drawing more characters.
Himawari shook her head. "Nothing," she said, but from her tense tone of voice Sarada could tell she was feeling something.
Sarada watched as the seal's glow increased in luminosity. Inky black symbols sprawled across her friend's back, written in a language she had never seen before. "Yes!" Kohaku cried, pumping a fist in the air. "I've got you beat, kid. Experience trumps genius any day."
Kohaku drew characters up and down Himawari's back. The inky black markings of Bolt's seal wriggled and writhed as they changed from indecipherable gibberish into something resembling broken, indecipherable gibberish. She still couldn't read it.
Kohaku let loose a howl of triumph. Apparently he could read it. Then he bowled over and started laughing until tears ran from the corners of his eyes. The markings receded back into the now familiar whirlpool seal. Himawari quickly pulled her shirt back on to preserve her modesty.
Sarada kicked Kohaku. The Uzumaki was still laughing uncontrollably. "What's so funny?" Sarada hissed.
"Oh, man," Kohaku grit out between giggles. "I knew the kid had a soft spot for his baby sister. When you two told my grandmother about what happened, I thought it was strange. I was right. He lied."
Sarada frowned. "Bolt lied?"
Kohaku nodded. "Oh, he branded you with a seal alright. But it's not the Cursed Seal of Obedience. It's a complicated seal that allows the user to track whoever the seal is placed on, even if they are separated by hundreds of miles. He probably even knows that I cracked the seal, since it activated momentarily," he explained.
"But that's not all," Kohaku continued. "I thought it was weird that Bolt would even attempt to place such a complicated seal on you, considering at the end of the fight he would have been injured and exhausted. He didn't have the focus nor the chakra to place such a powerful seal on the two of you. The tracking seal isn't a cursed seal, so it was also odd that it had hurt as much as you described."
"But you were right," Kohaku conceded. "Bolt was—is—a genius. He combined two seals. The tracking seal, and the Cursed Seal of Empowerment." Sarada shivered at the sinister name. "It's a bit of a misnomer, really. It should be called a blessed seal, rather than cursed. It creates a small nodule in the target's chakra pathways and imparts a portion of the user's chakra to them, to be used when needed. That was why the seal hurt."
Himawari spoke up. "But if Bolt was so exhausted by the end of the fight, how did he have chakra to seal into us?"
"Oh, that's easy. He stored some of his chakra from his Yang reserves. He probably has—" Kohaku stiffened and immediately stopped talking.
"Probably has what?" Sarada prompted.
Kohaku shrugged. "Sorry. Clan secret," he said simply.
Sarada grinned despite herself. She had been right. It felt good that her belief in her friend had been vindicated. She was going to give Bolt a proper beating for scaring her and Himawari the next time they met. "So, can you remove it?" It would be difficult to capture Bolt if he knew they were coming. Although it wouldn't keep them away, as he had intended with his lie, it would allow him foreknowledge of their arrival. They would never ambush him again.
Kohaku hummed in thought. "I could, maybe, in time," he answered. "But it would probably be safer not to. Plus, the Yang chakra that Bolt blessed you with is no small amount. It's triggered to activate if your lives are ever in danger. It's not usable in a fight, but it will keep you alive and on your feet far after normal men would have dropped."
Sarada was torn. Kohaku made it sound as if removing the seal would be dangerous. On one hand, she was loathe to revisit that exquisite pain that Bolt had inflicted upon her when he branded her with the seal. On the other, the seal was, supposedly, able to save her life if it was ever in danger. Keeping it could be a boon.
But then Bolt would always know if his sister or her was attempting to hunt him down.
Decisions.
Bolt stiffened as an ache filled his being. He felt a pull in his navel far to the east. He swore.
"What's wrong?" Hikari asked, walking alongside the makeshift sled that he lied on. Shūichi had it tethered to the saddle of his camel as their caravan sloshed through the sand.
"The seal I placed on my sister was activated," he answered. He could tell that much. He could feel the distinct quality of her chakra, so similar to his own. From the general direction and the strength of the pull, he estimated that they were in the Leaf.
Which was troublesome, because Bolt hadn't thought the Leaf had a seal master capable of undoing his work. That someone had was worrying. If they could activate the seal, they could possibly remove it. Then all his work would be for nothing. The act that he had performed—that nearly broke his heart when he saw the fear reflected in Sarada's and Himawari's eyes—would be for nothing. He did not suffer that sadness just for some random ANBU seal master to throw away his sacrifice so easily.
"Is everything—" Hikari said, pausing as an older, fat thug strolled by. He was balding, wearing nothing more than a leather loincloth. A wicked, curved scimitar rested on his hip. The thug grunted at them as he strode towards the front of the caravan. "—okay?"
"It should be," Bolt said, pausing to think for a moment. "Just because they've broken the seal doesn't mean they understand it or know how to remove it. They'll probably decipher its true purpose, but won't attempt to remove it. Nothing changes."
Hikari nodded and the two of them drifted into a weary silence. The desert was an unforgiving, harsh mistress. It was hotter than fire during the day and colder than ice at night. Bolt had learned that the hard way when he idly drew in the sand one day. It had scalded his fingertips. From then on, Bolt made a point of not touching the sand. He understood why so many people wore thick boots despite the heat. If you couldn't use chakra to stand atop the sand, it would be unbearable to walk for any great length of time.
It was damn near impossible to walk for any great length of time regardless. The heat and the sand and the wind made travelling through the desert an exercise worthy of ninja training. How people lived in the Land of Wind without the aid of chakra was beyond Bolt.
Another pack of thieves ran to the fore of the caravan, kicking up great wisps of sand with their curved boots. Bolt caught Tetsu's eye as the samurai gripped the hilt of his sword. He had not been thrilled to be travelling in the company of thieves—the "honorless whoresons" as he had so colorfully described. Bolt would've found it funny if he wasn't near death and surrounded by forty cutthroats. He didn't dare mention to Tetsu that he himself had been in the company of thieves when they had met. He had owed them a "debt," whatever that entailed. Must have been some debt if they had forced Tetsu to help them rob travellers.
Probably why he didn't try very hard to save their lives when he and Hikari slaughtered them. Bolt's lips twitched upwards at the memory.
There was a cry of elation somewhere up ahead. Bolt steeled himself and turned his body so he could look around the camel's flanks. Cresting a large dune was a massive, rocky sandstone crag. The only solid land for miles and miles. Atop it was a crude city of huts and hovels carved from the stone. A tent city had been erected around the crags and Bolt could see the many hundreds, if not thousands, of people milling about. There were so many that they kicked up a small sandstorm simply from walking.
Bolt wrinkled his nose the closer they got. The wind carried the stench of sweat and blood and stale alcohol and camels. God, did it smell like camels. He hated the foul creatures already. They bit. They spat. They smelled. They were slow. The fact that he was currently dependent on one for mobility made it doubly worse.
As their caravan entered the tent city, men and women stopped to shout crude greetings. Bolt noticed they were all armed. There were casks of alcohol on nearly every corner of crude pathways. Even during the day, at high noon, there were drunkards slumbering in their own vomit in the sand. A few couples made love passionately in the shade between tents where they had as much privacy as one could hope for. There were games of chance ran by street urchins. Men threw throwing knives at wooden posts from varying distances, competing to see who had the best aim.
Bolt realized what Tottori was. It was a city. A city of thieves. His eyes and his training picked out the few who were out of place. Burly, barrel-chested men armed with scimitars. Guards, to ensure order. Wizened old men with white beards who exchanged goods for ryō and ryō for goods. The fences; resellers of stolen goods.
Bolt grinned. He had expected a hovel of buildings from the warring clan eras when Shūichi had told him they were going to a city in the badlands. Tottori was only just above that, but there was one thing that thieves traded in that he was very, very interested in purchasing.
Information.
Information about what had been happening in the north that would cause the Stone to send their ninja to investigate dead Land of Wind citizens. Something, or someone, had to be shaking cages. He was determined to find out.
"Here we are!" Shūichi called, dismounting from his "trusty" steed as he had told Bolt. He didn't think the camel was trained not to shit where it ate, let alone be "trusty."
They were at the base of the rocky crags where great caves and tunnels had been hewn from the rock. In one of them, Bolt could see the telltale signs of a field hospital; bloody rags hanging from hooks, beds and gurneys, poles to hang IVs from, and dividers to keep the patients separate. He could smell blood and sweat and fear. More than once, Bolt heard a scream of agony erupt from somewhere deeper in the cave.
Hikari was staring at Shūichi like she wanted to wring his neck. Truthfully, Bolt thought she might have done so had her right arm not been broken and encased in a makeshift cast. He wasn't too thrilled either. Despite the risk, he would have preferred her to perform the surgery. "Not to worry!" Shūichi told them, smiling broadly. "Doc Sawbones is the best in the business!"
Best in the business—of thieves. There was an unholy wail of pain followed by the sound of flesh ripping. Two men barreled out of the cave and fell to their knees as they lost the contents of their stomachs in the desert sand. They didn't phase Shūichi at all as he proudly lead them into the lion's den. Tetsu stepped forward and pulled his sled into the cave. Bolt heard Hikari let a soft sigh out at the feeling of solid ground under her feet once more.
He was almost as fearful of being up and on his feet in the sand as he was of the doctor. Tetsu followed Shūichi, dragging him towards the back of the cave. Old, large light bulbs flickered above and casted them in a warm, yellow light.
Bolt paled as they came upon whom he had assumed was the doctor. She was looming over a man writhing in pain atop a table. The man whimpered as she wrapped clean linens around the stub that used to be his leg. It had been amputated from the knee down. The discarded limb twitched on the ground not far away. Now he knew what had caused the two men to vomit earlier. It was a grisly sight.
The woman finished wrapping the stub, and the man passed out. From pain or loss of blood, Bolt didn't know. She gestured, and the two men from earlier returned. They were pale and shaky, and approached her with clear hesitation. "Your friend should be fine. Keep his bandages clean and his leg elevated. If there is any sign of rot, return immediately," she said. Her voice was wizened and baritone.
The two nodded eagerly and carefully scooped their friend into their arms. They made a hasty retreat, and then the doctor turned her eyes on him. Bolt swallowed as he felt his pulse spike. She was an old woman, with wrinkles from both age and worry creasing her brow. Her hair was a faded black-gray, and her eyes were a dull, jade-green color. Bolt could see that, if she had been younger, she could have been a beautiful woman. His eyes fell to her right leg—it was a prosthetic. The joints of a puppet leg were clearly visible under her slacks, and the fabric wafted around the thin limb in an idle breeze.
"Hello. I'm Doctor Sawbones. What can I do for you?" the woman asked, though her eyes slid down to his prone form on the floor.
Shūichi waved a greeting with a broad smile. He didn't seem to understand the grim atmosphere. Hikari stepped forward. "My friend has several broken ribs. I've stabilized him as best as I could, but the surgery is beyond my skills," she informed the doctor.
Sawbones nodded. "Put him on the table over there," she said pointing to a—thankfully—clean surgical table on the opposite side of the room. "It's one hundred thousand ryō for the surgery, an additional fifty for post-care."
"Money is of no concern," Hikari said.
The doctor nodded and was about to speak, but was interrupted as a crowd filtered inside the cave. They were men and women; all armed to the teeth. Scimitars on their hips, throwing daggers in their hands, and a few even carried large fans on their backs. Bolt recognized a few of them from Shūichi's caravan. One of them, the fat man with no sense of modesty, stepped forward. He drew his scimitar and pointed it threateningly—right at him.
"I told you, boys," he spoke. "Bolt Uzumaki. Son of the Hokage, and rogue ninja of the Leaf. Injured and not even able to stand. Easiest fifty million I've ever seen."
"There will be no violence in my hospital," Sawbones said sternly. "Or you and your friends will never get treated again."
"That's fine, doc," the fat man said with a laugh. "We won't need to be thieves after he hand in his head."
That was the wrong thing to say. In a flash, Tetsu appeared before the crowd. There was perhaps twenty of them in all. He slaughtered them. Like a butcher mincing meat into cubes. It happened in the blink of an eye. Severed limbs and heads rolled about as he ruthlessly and methodically dismembered them. There wasn't even enough time for the would-be bounty hunters to scream. They simply died.
Sawbones frowned, but said nothing. Bolt could see her eyes were flicking between Tetsu and the river of blood that flew from the cave and cared canyons in the sand outside. "You didn't need to do that," she chided them, nodding towards the entrance.
A few of the burly guards Bolt had seen earlier were breathing heavily with their swords drawn. Their eyes were wide with shock at the carnage that Tetsu had dealt. "We might be thieves, but even thieves have honor."
"None may threaten my lord and live," Tetsu spoke without a hint of regret.
Bolt smiled grimly at that. Sawbones waved him off as she and Hikari carefully hefted Bolt off the sled and onto the surgery table. Things moved quickly after that. Bolt closed his eyes as a blindingly white light shone down upon him. He could hear the clink of metal and the sharp sting of antiseptic in his nostrils. "This is gonna hurt, kid," the doctor warned him.
"I'd rather it didn't," Bolt quipped, his entire body tensing in preparation. He heard an audible sigh and flinched as something sharp pierced his neck. His entire body went numb and limp. He couldn't feel anything. Then his mind grew warm and muddled, and he had never appreciated Hikari's talents in poison more than he did at that moment.
Darkness took him as he felt someone move his body.
Bolt awoke the next day, blinking his crusted eyelids open. He uttered a silent prayer that he had actually woken up at all. He felt sore all over, but it was a good sore. The kind he felt after a good workout session. It was the telltale sign of medical ninjutsu, practically its signature; sore but warm and pleasant.
He sat up, ever so slowly, so as to not hurt himself. Bolt let a groan of relief slip out as he managed to sit upright. He felt shaky and clammy from the surgery, but that was a dramatic improvement from constant pain and agony. He was dressed in soiled white linens that had been stained from so much use that no amount of soap would ever get them clean. Bolt guessed it was what passed for hospital gowns in these parts.
Carefully, he slipped a hand under his robe and felt around his chest. He grimaced as he felt what was clearly an open wound that had been stitched back together. Dreading what he would find, he pulled his collar forward and looked down his shirt.
The doctor had cut his chest open, slicing two long lines from his shoulders to his sternum, and then down to his navel from where they met. His skin was crudely sewn and stapled together. Bolt could tell immediately that it would scar, even with the aid of medical ninjutsu. Just another to add to the growing collection. Unless, of course, he could get Sarada's mother or Tsunade to heal him. Neither was likely, given his status as an official rogue ninja of the Leaf.
Sighing, Bolt leaned back into the pillows of the bed he was lying on and closed his eyes. He still felt a little drowsy from whatever poison Hikari had given him. Now that he was freed from the constant pain he had been in, his mind had other things to ponder.
Like how much of a fool he had been.
He had told his sister that only a Kage could capture him. What a load of shit that was. Outnumbered against inferior forces whom his father knew he wouldn't allow to be hurt, he and his friends had been beaten soundly. Forget S-class, like his wanted poster described him as, he was barely fit to be considered A-class.
The gap between B-class and A-class was small. High chūnin were regularly considered B-class criminals in the bingo book. A-class were jōnin. But the gap between A-class and S-class?
That was something that could not be quantified. You didn't become S-class through training. You became S-class when the world bestowed you that title. When your power was so far removed from an average human's that you more of a force of nature than a man. When your visage was what children feared or prayed to see in the night. When your very name was enough to inspire bravery in your allies and terror in your enemies. When you speak, the world listens with baited breath.
Bolt was not S-class. No matter how much the Union wanted to call him that. It was a technicality created by bureaucrats whom had never even seen a battlefield or who had forgotten what war was like entirely.
No, he wasn't S-class.
Not yet.
If the Union wanted to brand him as the most dangerous criminal from the Leaf since his master, then he would give them exactly what they wanted. First, he would recover. Then, he would help the people of the Land of Wind. After that, then he would train. There was still much he could learn. He needed to complete his sealing training. There was little the Uzukage's scroll could teach him, but there were a few lessons he had yet to complete. There were higher levels of the Lightning Armor he had theorized to exist but had not yet reached. He needed to refine his Rasenshinsei until using it was as easy as breathing.
Then he would give them a reason to call him S-class.
Bolt blinked, looking up as he heard boots scuffing stone. The sandy sheets erected around his bed for privacy were parted. It was Shūichi. "Hello, friend!" the man greeted him with a smile and a wave.
Now that he wasn't delirious with pain, Bolt found him odd. "Hello," Bolt greeted. He was too happy. As if the weight of the world wasn't on his shoulders. Shūichi always had a smile on his lips and a sparkle in his eye. He talked too much, too. He made pleasant conversation with anyone who would listen.
He just seemed to have an innate innocence, a goodness, a purity, about him that made Bolt relax his guard. That was what made his instincts scream at him in alarm. After the battle with his friends, he would never ignore them again. There was something off about Shūichi, and he was determined to figure out exactly what it is.
"Can I help you?" Bolt asked, when Shūichi just smiled at him.
"Oh, no, I was just checking on you. Little girl fell asleep," he answered, pointing towards the slumbering form of Hikari who rested against a nearby wall.
"For your own personal safety, don't ever call her that when she's awake," Bolt told him.
Shūichi just smiled and nodded, unaware of the danger he was in. Hikari had slipped poison in more than one Crimson Tide mercenary's food for less. "She insisted on assisting with the surgery," Shūichi informed him.
Bolt was rather thankful for that. He wasn't sure how much he trusted the good doctor after watching her hack someone's leg off. For all he knew, he was only alive because she had overseen the doctor's work.
But that was in the past. Now he could move forward, and continue working towards his dream. "Shūichi," Bolt said, drawing the man's attention. "Who are the information brokers in Tottori? Someone trustworthy, who knows what happens in the capital and in the Sand."
Who better to ask than a thief? And where better to find an information broker than a city of thieves? Bolt couldn't have asked for a better place to end up.
Shūichi faltered. "Well, there are a couple in town. The good ones charge a lot, though," he said.
"Money is of no concern," Bolt told him. He had plenty of money, after all. From the Crimson Tide, and from the spoils of war in the Land of Rain. He was quite wealthy. "Just that their information is accurate and recent."
"Well, if you've got the ryō, might as well visit the Broker," Shūichi said.
"The broker? What broker?" Bolt asked.
"No, that's his name. Nobody knows who he really is, so we just call him that," Shūichi said.
Bolt sighed.
Walking was something he had taken for granted. Standing, even. It had taken all his skill and willpower to avoid crying out as he managed to hoist himself to his feet. Thankfully, Hikari slept through the entire ordeal. She must have been truly tired to have not heard him. Bolt knew he wasn't as silent as he should have been. Tetsu, however, was not so easily fooled. He had stood watch over him, silently guarding him as he slept off the effects of the poison and the surgery. When Bolt made to leave, the samurai followed him dutifully without uttering a word.
Bolt was thankful he didn't need to convince Tetsu that he was fit to be up and walking again. He was sure Hikari would have chained him to the bed. Shūichi led them through the sandy pathways that passed for streets in Tottori. He waved at people—even people he shouldn't. More than once, Bolt thought he had seen a murderous expression cross a man's face as Shūichi passed them. He made quick, pleasant conversation with vendors selling their stolen wares. He even let a few street urchins scam him out of his ryō, whilst another two children picked his pockets.
It only made the feeling of wrongness echo louder in Bolt's mind.
Bolt was thankful no one had tried to steal from him. Not that he had anything in his pockets, it was all stored in a seal, but he didn't want to find out if Tetsu would extract the samurai's punishment for theft. They were quite fond of lopping hands off.
Eventually, they came to a large series of brightly colored tents. It was a bar, of sorts. It had worn wooden tables and chairs whose legs were not all the same length. Serving girls were scantily clad and served casks full of rice wine to the patrons. A few were kissing passionately where they sat, not bothering to find privacy.
Bolt scampered after Shūichi, who led them to an older woman with graying hair who was cleaning a porcelain cup. "Hello, madam!" Shūichi cried in greeting, heedless of how loud he was being. Several people looked up from their drinks.
"Here's in the back," the old woman said, sounding disinterested. She didn't even look up from cleaning her cup.
A small tent had been erected towards the rear of the tavern, and unlike the others, this one was as black as pitch. No light filtered through brightly colored fabric. There was only darkness. Bolt was immediately on guard. He felt chakra build in his eyes against his will; his dōjutsu making itself known.
Bolt gave in. He wasn't hiding. Not here, not anymore. The darkness cleared, giving way to a world formed of blue fire. There were a handful of chairs and tables scattered around the room, a bookcase in the corner that was filled with scrolls, and a lone man sat in an armchair at the far end of the tent. His hands were folded in his lap, but he was not deep in thought. He was looking right at them. Bolt could see the chakra of two trained guards hiding out of sight, just behind him. But nothing could hide from the Byakugan.
The Broker—for that was all Bolt could think of the man as—gestured for them to sit. Even in the darkness, he knew that Bolt could see him. Which made sense. He was an information broker; it was his job to know things. Knowing that a highly dangerous criminal from the Leaf was in your city, even temporarily, would be something he would know. And, if he was smart, he would look into said criminal's powers and abilities.
Bolt knew the Broker knew he had the Byakugan. Bolt took a seat, guiding Tetsu and Shūichi forward. Tetsu looked tense. He didn't like not being able to see. Bolt tapped him on the shoulder, once, to let him know that it was alright. He could handle things. And, well, if they needed light... lightning gave off plenty.
"Bolt Uzumaki," the Broker spoke. His voice was deep and gravely, as if he had smoked too many cigarettes in his life. Bolt could see that he was an older man, perhaps in his forties or early fifties. It was probably true. "What can I do for you?"
Bolt pressed his index finger to his forearm. There was a wisp of smoke and an audible discharge of chakra. Bolt saw the two guards behind the Broker tense and reach for their weapons, but the Broker waved them off. Bolt placed a suitcase of ryō on the table and slid it over to the man. The Broker was quick and methodical in his motions, as if he had performed the same action many times. He probably had.
He opened the case, quickly perused its contents, then clicked it shut and passed it off to one of the guards. "I can see this is going to be the start of a most beneficial relationship, Mr. Uzumaki," the Broker said. "What would you like to know?"
"There has been rumors of killings in the north," Bolt explained immediately. "People going missing in the night, near the full moon, only to wander back to their homes a few days later. I know that the Hidden Stone has sent ninja to investigate, and they whispered of men who were hollow inside. They found corpses, a veritable graveyard, in the northern mountains. What do you know about it?"
"Ah," the Broker said, exhaling audibly. There was a flicker of flame as he lit a cigarette. Bolt wrinkled his nose at the pungent smell of tobacco. It was different than the ones in the Leaf. "You're talking about the Spider of the Sand," he exhaled a great puff of smoke.
"Spider of the Sand," the Broker said, taking another drag from his cigarette. "Tsuchigumo. Not even I know much about him. Not many people survive meeting with it."
Bolt didn't miss the fact that the Broker referred to Tsuchigumo as an it, not a him or a her. "I've sent agents north to spy on the Spider, but they never come back alive. Well, not in the traditional sense."
"Traditional sense?" Bolt questioned. There was only one type of living, as far as he knew.
The Broker nodded. "You were right about the hollow men, as the Stone so aptly put it. Stop by the gallows on your way out. You'll see what I mean."
Bolt frowned. "That's all you have? A name, and a general location? The Land of Wind is a large country. It could take years to scour the north and find Tsuchigumo," he said.
The Broker chuckled. "If you're seeking the Spider out, I wish you luck and a swift death. That's all I know. The others will tell you tales of half truths and fantasy. My information is trustworthy, and more importantly, true," he answered, waving Bolt off.
It was as clear of a dismissal as Bolt had ever seen. Grumbling at the loss of nearly a million ryō, he stalked out of the tavern with as much vitriol as he could muster. He headed back towards the clinic he was supposed to be interred in, but stopped for a moment to follow the Broker's advice.
The gallows were little more than a stone outcropping that extended from the rocky crags that the tent city of Tottori was built around. Thick woven ropes were circled around the stone. There were bodies hanging there by the neck. Men and women, and even some children. Most of the corpses were little more than bones and mummified skin. But a few. Those few.
They were dead, that much Bolt could see. But they didn't decay. They were as whole as they were in life, but his Byakugan could see that their eyes were unseeing and glazed. Their limbs were hacked off at the waist and shoulders, leaving dark, gaping holes.
But one corpse above all caught Bolt's attention. It was a young woman, perhaps no older than fourteen or fifteen. She had an uncanny likeness to Inojin's mother; pale skin, long blonde hair. Her jade eyes stared down at him, her eyes cold and lifeless. But she had been cut in twine at the waist, just above the hip. Bolt walked forward, dreading what he was to find, but praying that he found it all the same.
He stood under her hanging body, and looked up. He expected to find guts and gore. But he didn't.
He found nothing.
She was empty inside. Hollow.
Bolt recoiled, backing away. He blinked, his dōjutsu fading. He shivered, feeling a cold hand run up and down his spine. The walk back to the clinic was in near silence. Tetsu, bolt could tell, had been as disturbed as he had been. Shūichi, even, so boisterous and happy, had been subdued. The hanging woman had been so... so human looking. So real. What could have happened to her to turn her into that? A shell of a woman. In the most literal sense.
Bolt didn't even flinch as Hikari had flung him back into bed the moment he had returned. She—quite literally—chained him to his hospital bed. He could escape, probably, if he wanted to. But he didn't. Bolt wanted to think.
He had a sickening feeling of dread in the back of his mind. An idea. One so dark and twisted that he didn't want to entertain it for fear that it would manifest itself as truth.
He knew of one "hollow man." Not personally, only through reading. Nagato had extensive intel on all of his Akatsuki members. On their powers; their abilities. Their strengths and weaknesses. Their history.
Sasori of the Red Sand was a hollow man.
Bolt dreaded to think that the woman he saw today was a human puppet. But, in his heart, he knew it to be true. That was what she was. A puppet. A woman who had been murdered and turned into a literal walking, talking shell of her former self. A slave to a puppeteers will.
Tsuchigumo was a human puppeteer. He was killing people, hundreds of them, and making an army of puppets so lifelike that they couldn't be discerned from real flesh and blood.
It was a crime against humanity.
And Bolt would make him pay.
A/N:
So this chapter is a little late. I really have no excuse. I've just not had time to write as I've found myself submerged in my other hobbies. That's just the way the cookie crumbles, I guess. Anyway, this chapter was one I'm a little disappointed in. I feel like it wasn't as strong as the previous one. But it does set the stage for the Land of Wind, and I'm pretty excited for how things unfold here.
I sort of had Bolt take a page out of Itachi's book, when it came to Himawari and Sarada. It felt right.
I wanted to take this time to get on my soap box about the Tsunade/Sakura/Sarada super strength. In the manga, it's used almost as comedic relief 99% of the time. In reality, it would have been a seriously dangerous strength. A single hit, though slow, would almost surely kill and cripple any opponent if it landed. When Tsunade would hit X character for saying/doing something she didn't like, she would have to be extremely careful with how much strength she actually used lest she killed them. And, most of the time, they would get up and shake it off like nothing had even happened. The extent of Bolt's injuries are quite serious (flail chest is when your ribs are broken in so many places that portions of them are no longer connected to bone and are "floating") due to Sarada's misjudgment of how much strength she could use.
Also, as a side note, for anyone who watches Game of Thrones—wow. S06E09, holy shit. I think that was the best hour of television I've ever watched.