Chapter 49: The Crescent Kingdom (Part 2)
Nadare's P.O.V.
"So now you understand why I didn't just walk up and say hi." I said soberly as I finished explaining what had happened to me since he last saw me in X-Men. He and I had elected to patrol the perimeter while Anko and Aiko watched the circus with the prince and his caravan. "There are holes in my memory that I suspect are trapped within Nathan inside my mind. However I fear I will never get parts of my memory back."
"That is entirely possible. I understand why you didn't want any of us to know, and still don't want the other two to know. However, Mason is much better equipped to deal with this than I am. Not only because he is more empathic but also because he actually has more medical knowledge than I do, and I am including psychiatry in that umbrella. I will do what I can if you insist, but Mason will have to become involved if your condition is beyond my abilities." Ethan was right and I knew it, he was also right about what he said next. "Either way, Natalie is going to be pissed you didn't trust us enough to tell us. Psychological damage or otherwise." I froze in my steps as we rounded the corner and saw them exiting the tent, Natalie running over to us. I could practically feel Ethan's smirk of satisfaction at the reaction his words had had, but I was genuinely worried about what she could do to get even with me.
"She's even scarier than Azula when she's pissed…." I muttered to myself as Aiko started ranting about how cool some of the acts were, and about how annoying the princely father and son were. She had complained about how Michiru seemed to think that enough money could fix everything, and how his son kept trying to buy her. It was clear to the three of us that what the boy wanted was a friend, but didn't know how to go about it. The boy had offered her positions ranging from bodyguard to teacher to concubine, Aiko had slapped him for the last one saying how a boy his age shouldn't even know that word.
Michiru had ended up buying the entire circus and now was buying a pair of ships to get everything back to the Moon Kingdom. We would join the two royals and the circus on the first ship, while the rest of their purchases would be on the second, larger ship under a regular guard. I was glad that the mission was almost over, however I still didn't like boats since I still tended to rely more on my earth-sense than my eyes. On a boat I could only really rely on my eyes, which I did not like. The journey itself was uneventful with the single exception of a storm which had almost washed away prince Hikaru who had tried to save a monkey and saber-toothed cat from being washed away. Natalie had had to resort to using her wings to save them, claiming they were a bloodline limit that she had tried to keep hidden. Ethan had then had to explain to Anko that the three Advena genin in the leaf village were not related by blood but had been brought together when their homes had been destroyed. The three together had called themselves Advena and decided to become siblings. Anko accepted the story and told Ethan that he would have to inform the Hokage when we returned home.
"Something isn't right. Where is everyone?" Michiru asked with a slight whimper as we travelled through the streets towards the castle.
"Hiding." I said closing my eyes. "They are watching us from inside their houses. They are anxious about something." I stated calmly, making a subtle hand sign to my team and the coach driver, who we had taught some signs to in case of emergency. The sign I used was one that said to be alert, ambush ahead.
"We will have to ask about it when we get to the palace." Anko said after giving a slight nod. We arrived at the palace less than five minutes later to find not the king, but his advisor Shabadaba.
"Shabadaba! What are you doing? Where is Father!?" Michiru screamed as Shabadaba explained his coup, ending with a loud, proud declaration that the king was dead. Shabadaba had three shinobi with him, and when he gave the order, the palace guards turned their swords on us. After a few seconds of combat, some soldiers loyal to the king arrived and led us to a cave where the king and the last loyalists were hiding. The king said his final farewells to his son and grandchild and asked us leaf shinobi to either get Michiru and Hikaru out of the Moon Kingdom, or to help them reclaim it, before he died telling his family he loved them one last time.
"I vote we reclaim it." I said at the small meeting we were having the next morning. "Shaba… Shamata… screw it, Off-Brand-Jafar expects us to run. We should take him head on. I can use clones to make them think we are running, let them ambush 'us' and use it as an opportunity to find out about those three shinobi. Once we know what they can do, we can better decide what we should do." I stood as I finished my plan.
"I would agree with that but, you saw the wound the king had, that was caused by the shinobi leader, the one with the freaky arm. Once he touches someone with that right arm, they start to turn to stone. The longer he holds on the faster it goes." The captain said with a dark expression. "We have some intel on the other two as well, but it is still advisable to flee. At least for now, King Michiru is in no condition to rule right now.
"So we take those two and leave, what do you do? Cause I can tell you don't plan to come with us." Shiki said glancing sideways at the captain.
"We stay and fight, it's all we can do. A boat will be at the shore tonight at midnight, it will take you all back to the Land of Fire."
"I don't like it, but it is the only thing we can do." Anko said with a grimace. "We will take them back to his wife's home in the country and I will see about getting a regular patrol set up in the area." With that the meeting was over and we went to make our preparations for tonight.
Michiru was broken, you could tell even without looking at him. He didn't say a word since his father had died. Hikaru had to beg him to get him to start moving towards the boat that would take us back to the mainland. However before I could get to the boat with Michiru, we were attacked. A smoke bomb had gone off and caught me and Michiru off-guard. Well, it caught Michiru off-guard. I picked the large man up and threw him over my shoulder and ran out to the boat, dropping him heavily into it I told them to set sail. Just as the boat started to move a massive shuriken embedded itself in my back.
Aiko's P.O.V.
I felt time screech to a halt as the shuriken buried itself in Nadare's back, and I felt relief and confusion surge to my mind when it was revealed he was a shadow clone. I looked back to the beach to see Nadare holding the small kunoichi in a chokehold as the smoke cleared.
"Why are you still here!?" He yelled as he threw the woman into the larger of the two male shinobi. "Get out of here!" Reality snapped back into focus as I felt the subtle genjutsu fall into place. Ethan was masking our presence and likely making it appear that we were sailing in multiple directions. Though they would only notice one at a time. He glanced at me and Anko and nodded. Anko grinned and I was confused again, her kid brother was fighting three chunin or Jounin level opponents alone and she was grinning? I joined them in observing the battle, noticing our boat had stopped moving. The large man seemed to be just that, a large man. He was predictable, sturdy, hard hitting, and hard to put down. The woman seemed to use genjutsu to conceal her movements and disorient her enemies, while the leader seemed content to hang back for now, seems he relies heavily on that right arm of his.
"He's clumsy." Anko whispered. My eyes widened as her words registered. Nadare was moving far slower and less gracefully and less ferociously than normal. "Seems the smoke had some poison in it. Now we know." For the second time in ten minutes I felt my heart stop. The leader of the enemy shinobi rushed at Nadare while he was busy with the large one. The right hand closed around Nadare's neck, lifting him off the ground. Nadare was now a lawn ornament. Our enemies walked over to a bush and pulled Michiru out roughly and after what looked like a short conversation, they left. We returned to shore and turned to the Michiru with us and wondered which one was the distraction. Then I noticed something.
"They are both still here…" Anko looked at me with a grin.
"Cause Nadare is alive. This pile of gravel is just an earth clone. The real Nadare is currently posing as Michiru."
"My genjutsu was timed perfectly with the shadow clone being dispelled so we vanished with the smoke from the clone. They know we will come back to rescue 'Michiru' so they will likely play along since they have likely detected the transformation by now." As Ethan finished talking, Nadare walked out of the bushes nearby.
"I am just a clone, just so you know." He said as I turned to glare at him. "Sis, do you have a way to deal with that poison? It is mildly annoying." The clone said as it turned to Anko, who chuckled.
"I have one or two ways around it, though the easiest would be for me to take her down personally. I trust you can handle the leader?" The clone nodded. "Then that just leaves the big guy for the other two. Sound good to you two?"
"I guess, I could find a way around the leaders arm if I had more time, but for now I will just have to hope I meet the large one in a place where I can play to my advantages." Ethan said smoothly. I simply nodded, now that I had revealed my siren abilities as a bloodline limit, I needn't hold back as much. Anko extracted the poison from Michiru's system and surprisingly injected herself with a stronger dose once she had reverse engineered it. Once she was recovered, which didn't take long considering how much she used on herself, we headed out to reclaim the kingdom. Michiru and Hikaru were on a rooftop with the loyal guards and I could see something spark in Michiru's eyes as he watched the sun rise over his city.
'Michiru' was about to be hung, the three of us used a hidden entrance the guards had shown us before going to join the guard on the royalty. Anko was forced to go on alone however as waiting on the first floor was the massive man Ethan and I had to deal with. Good god, he is even bigger up close. This small round room would put us on the defensive and severely limit how Ethan could support me. Letting my wings free and beginning a simple song to increase our physical abilities while lowering his, I readied myself for battle. I launched towards my larger foe just as he started moving and the battle had begun.
~A/N~
I own nothing.
I'm back. Sorry about the wait. I was having difficulty motivating myself to post this, then just kinda forgot I was posting it at all... but it is here now and fresh in my mind. I unfortunately can only promise to try not to do this again... but I do promise that much.
Anyway... as always, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, Favorites and Follows are great ways to show that you did. Review if there is anything specific you want to say or ask, I will reply to any questions or comments.
So that said, I will talk to you all again next chapter!
