Ch. 21: The Forbidden Jutsu of the Tsuchigumo

Three days later, our team had reunited. We were, as usual, waiting for Kakashi.

"Do you think we should just go?" Sakura said, nervously fiddling with her mask and smoothing out the headband that had been tucked beneath it. "The Hokage summoned us almost an hour ago."

"The old man knows what Kakashi's like," Naruto said, while peering intently at a nearby tree.

Sakura sighed heavily. "You shouldn't be so disrespectful to the Hokage, Naruto. He could kill you in his sleep."

"That's stupid," I said. "Cases of sleep-murder have often been claimed but never proven."

Sakura spiked killer intent, her eyes widening. "I didn't mean he'd actually be sleeping."

Kakashi emerged, hanging upside-down from the tree Naruto was watching. "Who's sleeping? Certainly not me. I am awake."

Sakura gave him an overly-sweet smile, her eyes glinting coldly. "What's your excuse this time, sensei?"

"I had to take a short, 48-hour visit to T&I. But I'm fine now."

Naruto peered more intently at a single leaf on the tree branch. "Why does everybody say that?"

"Say what? I said nothing," Kakashi said. His words struck me as honest and straightforward.

Naruto squinted at him, turning away as the leaf rustled in a breeze that didn't touch anything else on the branch. "But you've been—"

"We should go see the Hokage," I said. "If we wait any longer, it could seem treasonous."

We all shivered, then jumped across the rooftops to quickly reach the Hokage tower.

"Ah, Team Seven!" the Hokage said as we entered his office. "What a pleasure to see you all so early in the day. I wasn't expecting you for another hour, at least."

He continued. "The Mizukage has requested a team of Konoha ninja for a very important mission."

Sakura pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Why use us? There are plenty of Mist ninja."

"Fewer than you would think, after that whole Bloody Mist debacle"— the Hokage shook his head — "Although your skepticism is not unwarranted. The target is currently residing in the Land of Fire, and the Mizukage is afraid of starting another shinobi war…presumably because her village has never won."

Mist hunter nin are known for their discretion, quietly killing their target and slipping the body out. No one in Konoha would oppose a simple assassination mission; it certainly wouldn't start a war. There was only one reason why they would reach out to us.

"They're worried about collateral damage," I said.

The Hokage nodded, ignoring the way Naruto was glaring at his hat. "Yes. This A-rank mission will draw on both your team's areas of expertise."

Veins began to pop on Naruto's forehead as he huffed out, "Which jinchuriki are we supposed to kill?"

A light aura of chakra began to fuzz the air around the Hokage's hat, then rapidly disappeared. Naruto sagged, groaning.

The Hokage adjusted his hat, resting his elbows against his bare desk as he leaned forwards to sternly peer at us. "The six-tailed slug's jinchuriki, Utakata Suzumura, betrayed his village a few years ago. They've been failing to assassinate him ever since."

I snorted. "It sounds like they should have hired us a while ago."

"I said the very same thing in my letter," the Hokage said. "Allowing Utakata to live sets a dangerous precedent for Mist's other jinchuriki."

"The turtle," Hashirama said dully as he robotically signed papers at his much smaller desk.

"That impressionable young kunoichi may start to get ideas."

Ideas are very dangerous and highly discouraged among Konoha citizens. Sakura hurried to change the subject. "So it's just a simple assassination mission?"

"A nice, clean kill," the Hokage agreed. "Mist gets the body, and we'll scoop up the demon and give it to my precious granddaughter as soon as it reforms. Of course, there is…one complication."

Sakura shivered with killing intent, and her lips twitched violently. After a moment of silence, she said, "A complication?"

"The Mist hunter nin have tracked Utakata down to Mount Katsuragi, home to the Tsuchigumo clan."

"They still exist?" Hashirama said as he finished the stack of paperwork and began scribbling his signature on the desk. "They were always such a small clan."

"Proud, too," Tobirama said with a snort. "They had five proper ninja, hardly genin level, but they believed they were better off alone than joining the village."

"Even if they areharboring the slug, you aren't allowed to harm any of the clan members," the Hokage said.

"Wah? Why's that, old man?" Naruto said, now focused on the Second Hokage's stack of paperwork.

"During the last war, they invented a forbidden jutsu that I like to call The Village Obliterator."

Sakura's brow furrowed lightly with worry. "Should we assume…?"

The Hokage said, "It obliterates villages."

"Huh," Kakashi said from his perch on the ceiling. "That is not what I would have guessed."

"No need to worry. We signed a treaty after obliterating Stone during the last war. As long as we protect them from outside threats...mostly all those people whose villages they obliterated…they will never use their jutsu again."

"You mean they didn't destroy it?" Sakura said.

The Hokage chuckled, watching as the air around Tobirama's stack of paperwork began to tremble. "It was the only way they could talk us into upholding the terms of the treaty."

"Yata!" Naruto yelled as the paperwork began to lift into the air. He made it about a foot before he lost concentration and the whole stack fell and covered the room.

The Hokage plucked a piece of paper from atop his hat, his eyes amused. "Just be polite, don't startle any Tsuchigumo, and hopefully they won't obliterate the mountain."

Our team gathered at the edge of a forest, quietly checking our weapons before launching into the assassination mission. A few feet away, moonlight softly lit the grassy field circling the mountain. Aside from a few obviously booby-trapped areas, there was nothing of note in the field, not even a guard. On top of Katsuragi Mountain, four dark buildings huddled together.

"Um, sensei," Sakura said. "Shouldn't we send a messenger bird to tell them we're coming?"

"Of course not," Kakashi said. "What if they warn the jinchuriki?"

"Yeah, and what if they panic when we show up unannounced and obliterate the whole mountain?!" Sakura cried.

Kakashi's eyes curled into cheerful crescents. "It'll be fine. We'll just slip in, kill the jinchuriki, and slip out again. No one even needs to know we were there."

"We'll just kill a jinchuriki in the middle of the night without anyone noticing?"—I raised an eyebrow—"Isn't this a ninja compound?"

"Yup." Kakashi darted into the field, using his Earth Burial Jutsu to hide below the barrage of kunai that flew at him from the grass. On top of the mountain, a large fire lit. It appeared that we had woken up the clan.

Sakura, oozing killer intent, clutched at her head and growled, "Naruto!"

"What did I do?" Naruto said.

Sakura slammed her bird seal against his chest.

Naruto blinked. "Huh. That happened a lot sooner than I'd expected. What gives, Outer?"

Sakura sighed, relieved, as the Naruto transformed into Sakura's black-and-white persona. "You are so much more tolerable outside of my head, Inner."

Inner Sakura scowled at her as we cautiously followed Kakashi into the booby-trapped field.

A couple of hours later, as the half-moon shone at the highest point of the sky, we crept up the final stretch of path circling the mountain. Forty minutes before, we'd heard shouting. No doubt the entire village would be gathered near the path's entrance, prepared to fight. We would win, obviously, but the Third would probably be angry about all the collateral damage…particularly if the mountain, the clan, and our team were obliterated. It costs a lot of time and money to train a team like ours, after all.

We walked up the path and caught our first glimpse of the few small buildings and their meager defenses. A trembling old man stood alone in the small compound. He held a torch aloft, peering nervously at our shadowy forms.

He called out. "Look, I…I am really sorry about whatever happened to your village. But, th-that's in the past now. Your village is gone, and so is whoever blew it up. And, really, what is vengeance, anyway? It just causes more suffering."

I heavily disagreed, but the old man seemed flighty enough to blow us all up at the first sign of opposition. I spoke calmly to put him at ease. "This isn't about that."

I entered the line of his torch's light, and his eyes widened as he spotted our forehead protectors. He snarled. "Konoha ninja! I warned Lord En No Gyoja that the Third would never keep his promise. The temptation of the Forbidden Jutsu would lure those thieves back here."

"Wait a second—" Naruto said.

The old man waved his torch at us. "You will never take our jutsu. Do you understand me?"

"This isn't about that either," I said.

The old man collapsed back into himself, slightly out of breath. "You aren't trying to steal our Forbidden Jutsu?"

"No," Sakura said. "That's not our mission."

"Maybe we'll swing by to steal it after our mission," Kakashi said.

Sakura whirled around to glare at him, releasing a thin tendril of killing intent just barely felt over her duplicate's tidal wave. "No. We are not stealing the jutsu, and nobody is gonna freak out and blow up the mountain."

"I did say 'maybe,'" Kakashi said. "The old man hasn't really sold me on it yet."

Kakashi turned expectantly to the man, patiently waiting for further explanation.

The man backed up a little, "Uh…"

Clearly, someone needed to take charge of the situation. Kakashi was too busy attempting jutsu theft, the Sakuras were too busy stopping Kakashi, and Naruto lacked diplomacy. Somehow, that left me—the lowest ranking member of our team—to approach the old man.

I stepped forward. "I am Sasuke Uchiha, a ninja of Konoha. Are you the leader of the Tsuchigumo clan?"

The old man stood as straight as his crooked back would allow, his thick eyebrows furrowed. "No. I am Tonbee, the caretaker of this sacred fortress and the adviser to our clan heiress. Why have you come?"

Naruto leapt forward, holding up a photograph of the target. "Have you seen this guy?"

"Utakata?"—Tonbee blinked in surprise—"Yes, he's been living here for a few weeks now. I suspected he was wanted, but not by Konoha."

Tonbee peered closely at the photo, in which Utakata still wore his forehead protector. "A Mist ninja, eh? You can't blame him for leaving that place. Savages, the whole lot of them."

"One of them's been living with you for a month," Inner Sakura said.

"That's different. He's one of the good ones who had the good sense to betray them."

"Okay, whatever," Inner Sakura muttered. "Where is he?"

"Well…" Tonbee flushed.

"Sir?" Sakura said.

Tonbee tapped his pointer finger against the torch's handle. "When I noticed your approach, I sent a messenger bird to Konoha, to request help. I then told Lady Hotaru to escape, with Utakata as her guard."

Kakashi tilted his head to the side, at least one eyebrow raised. "Why?"

"We were expecting a team of vengeful ninja," he said. "Lady Hotaru and Utakata fled down a secret tunnel."

"That's so cool," Naruto said. "Where is it?"

Tonbee's whole body deflated as he sighed. "I collapsed it. I'm starting to regret that. It'll take a really long time to dig it out again."

"We'll lend you some Narutos," Kakashi said over the cover of his perverted book. "Where does the tunnel lead to?"

"Lady Hotaru!" Tonbee cried as we approached our target and a young girl strolling through the forest.

"Tonbee?" Hotaru said. "I thought you were fighting to the death!"

When she tried to hurry forward, our target placed an arm in front of her. "Tonbee. Who are those ninja with you?"

Hotaru's eyes widened as she noticed us lurking in the shadows. She repeated softly, "You should be fighting to the death…unless…"

"Lady Hotaru?" Tonbee said.

"You traitor!"—Hotaru's almond-shaped eyes narrowed at us—"I will never allow you to take the Forbidden Jutsu. It's mine. One day, I'm going to use it to restore honor to our clan."

Naruto blinked. "Wait, you are talking about the village obliterating jutsu, right?"

"Yeah, of course," Hotaru said. "It's my grandfather's legacy."

Naruto persisted. "Obliterating villages is your grandfather's legacy?"

"My parents died to destroy those villages"—Hotaru's narrowed eyes swept over our group—"How dare you spit on that."

Sakura's black-and-white clone drew a kunai, growling and leaking killer intent.

Tonbee's eyes had rounded with horror. "Lady Hotaru, I would never, ever betray you. These are Konoha ninja. They aren't a threat to the Tsuchigumo clan."

"Let's not make any generalizations," Kakashi said. "I'm pretty threatening."

"Kakashi-sensei!" the Sakuras and Naruto shouted.

Utakata raised his arm, pointing with a flute. "Hotaru. Go."

He watched us all intently as Hotaru began to walk towards Tonbee. She paused midway between the two men—several feet from either one. "Just what is going on here?"

"A simple assassination mission," Kakashi said as he burst from the ground beneath Utakata, his hand chirping with electricity.

"Master!" Hotaru cried as Utakata dodged, blew into his flute, and trapped Kakashi in a giant bubble.

"This is becoming a pattern," Kakashi muttered.

The girl tried to approach Utakata, but he stopped her with a sneer.

"I told you never to call me master!"

"But…"—Hotaru's voice came out soft and brokenhearted—"You are my master. You saved me from those Mist ninja."

"They were after me, not you," he said. "I only saved myself."

Sakura's split personality charged him with a flaming kunai. It charred his hands as he met it with the flute. After several clashes, he quenched the fire with a flurry of bubbles. The kunai fell and stabbed into the ground. The kunoichi skidded away from them as the bubbles started exploding. She climbed up a tree's branches, eyeing him for weak spots.

In a nearby tree, I heard two ninjas softly land on a branch, then go silent. A small gaggle of Narutos were presumably impersonating birds again.

"What about that time you taught me how to water walk?" Hotaru asked.

"I still haven't learned that," Naruto muttered. Neither had I, come to think of it.

"I didn't teach you anything," Utakada said, stretching his burned hands. "I threw you in the water and told you to stand on it."

I frowned. This was starting to sound really familiar.

Either Hotaru was on the edge of tears, or she was faking it particularly well. "What about that beautiful bubble jutsu you taught me, then?"

Utakada exploded…metaphorically. Hotaru hadn't been distressed enough to use her clan jutsu. "That was an impossible task! This is the Land of Fire. What were the odds you'd have a water nature?"

From inside his floating bubble, Kakashi took a sudden interest in the Tsuchigumo heiress.

A Naruto, who I hadn't sensed at all from his perfect ambush position, popped into being from a fallen leaf near Utakada's foot. He then walked past the target to lay a hand on Hotaru's shoulder. "Kid, you're a lot like me when I was your age."

She wrinkled her nose. "I'm pretty sure we're the same age."

"Yup. But you're starting waaaaaaay late for a ninja, so that makes me older," Naruto explained. "I know it's tough, but you should just accept that your sensei's never actually gonna teach you anything."

"What?"

Sakura gave her a sympathetic style. "We reacted the exact same way."

"Hn."

"Sorry," Naruto said with a shrug. "I'm sure it's not you. He's just too much of a lazy, self-centered, late-all-the-time, perverted jerk to help anybody else."

Kakashi, eyes fixed on his pornographic novel as he sat cross-legged in the bubble, added, "Also, maybe he just doesn't want to."

Utakada growled as Inner Sakura lunged at him again, capturing her in a bubble that he sent flying upwards. "Actually, I have a lot of issues with the general concept of masters and apprentices."

Kakashi turned a page of Icha Icha Paradise for quite possibly the first time that day. "That seems kind of selfish."

"It originated when I killed my master," Utakada continued, hands white where he gripped the flute.

"Right," Sakura said. "We learned about this in the Academy. A Mist ninja must kill his master so that he can become the new master."

"That doesn't surprise me," Tonbee said, stroking his grey mustache. "I saw the Mist ninja commit many atrocities during the war."

I said, "Wasn't that the same war where your clan started obliterating villages with your Village Obliterator Jutsu?"

"You can't blame us for that!" Tonbee snapped. "It was wartime."

Utakada huffed, blowing a few explosive bubbles. "I only killed my master because he was trying to kill me."

His master was clearly trying to get the jump on Utakada before his student could assassinate him. That sort of forward thinking separated a brilliant ninja from the mediocre masses.

"I'm starting to get why there are so few Mist ninja," Inner Sakura muttered.

Utakada blew into his flute, surrounded himself with a bubble, and began to delicately float away. "Tch. This whole situation is a pain."

"So cool," Hotaru whispered longingly.

Inner Sakura's kunai, still lodged in the dirt, began to quietly shiver with chakra. It flew upwards to stab Utakada's bubble.

Naruto immediately destroyed whatever suaveness he'd gained from that move by shouting, "Ha! Sorry to burst your bubble, but we're here to kill you."

"I have done nothing to deserve death,"Utakada hissed.

"Yeah-huh you did, you…Guys, what did he do again?"

Everyone on our team cringed in embarrassment, barring the one ninja who ought to have been feeling embarrassment the most.

Sakura said, "Naruto! You need to read the mission information."

"I did! I mean, I skimmed it. But I didn't see anything in there that looked that bad," Naruto said. Based on the rustling in the surrounding trees, even his clones were shuffling their feet nervously.

"He's a missing nin," I said.

Naruto winced slightly as Inner Sakura raced at Utakada with a flaming kunai in each hand. He said, "Yeah, but he's from Mist. We don't like Mist."

"Of course not," Kakashi said. "We have always been at war with Mist."

Inner Sakura jabbed her kunai at Utakada, the fire licking his fingers. "Except for that two-year period when we were staunch allies, which made being enemies again really awkward."

"Right. Always," Kakashi agreed.

Sakura said, "It's a matter of principal, Naruto. If a ninja can betray his village just because it's evil, what's to stop him from betraying a righteous village like Konoha?"

"Besides," I said. "I'm sure he's not truly innocent. He's murdered plenty of Mist hunter nin."

Utakada, clearly in pain as he fought Inner Sakura off with two burned hands, gestured towards regular Sakura's hunter nin mask. "I am clearly not the only one."

"That's a totally different situation," Sakura said. "The hunter nin are your comrades. It may be culturally acceptable in Mist to kill your sensei, but no village in the world thinks it's okay to kill your comrades."

"I'm pretty sure that's how they become genin," Naruto said. "Remember Zabuza?"

"This isn't that hard, Naruto!"—Sakura dragged her hand through her pastel hair—"You just don't get it because you slept through ethics class back in the Academy."

I had really enjoyed ethics class. We discussed lots of interesting questions like "Did the Hokage order an action because it is morally good, or is the action morally good because he ordered it?" and received a lot of interesting answers like "Yes."

Sakura's split personality was trying to fight off the explosive clan heiress, who had decided to fight beside her unwilling master. Kakashi had broken free of his bubble and was trying unsuccessfully to tear Utakada's heart out of his chest.

Sakura took a deep breath. "Okay. Finish this sentence: The Hokage ordered it, so that means…"

Naruto scratched his head. "Somebody paid us?"

Sakura huffed. "I am so not cut out for being a sensei to a blockhead like you."

"Now that you mention it…" Kakashi said as Utakada narrowly avoided his chidori.

"No!" both Sakuras shouted at him at the same moment. Sakura leapt into the fray with her giant, flaming sword.

Thankfully, Naruto and I had always understood each other. I met his eyes as my Sharingan activated. "Just kill him, idiot."

Naruto charged at me, exactly as planned. Due to the way I'd subtly rearranged his perspective, his attack sent him hurtling towards our target.

I smirked for a moment, then yelled, "This calls for my Sharingan!"

Utakada glanced at my eyes for just a second. I watched the fight through his vision. The black-and-white Sakura had tackled Hotaru to the forest floor, loudly growling at her. Real Sakura slashed at him, the fire's dancing teeth biting into his skin as he desperately dodged each blow. Kakashi, along with most of the Narutos, had been trapped in bubbles. Still, the Naruto horde kept coming, determined to strangle me…but unknowingly aiming for the target.

The most important weapon, though, was the one I didn't let Utakada see. My shuriken, sharpened with a paralyzing charge of electricity, flew past him and circled around right for his neck. It twirled through the air with dazzling sparks trailing it.

The shuriken halted. A large, blue hand gripped it, then dropped it with a hiss of pain. "Yowtch. That really stings."

Itachi leapt in front Utakada, destroying the Narutos with a sweep of his hand. Sakura took cover in the shrubbery, and her counterpart backed away slowly, a kunai to Hotaru's throat. Taking a barely-trained girl hostage struck me as particularly ruthless. I approved.

"Itachi," Kisame said. "Make sure our friend here is alright."

I watched Itachi from both my and Utakada's perspectives as my evil older brother kneeled to inspect the target's wounds. None of them were life threatening, but they were likely painful. Itachi looked up at him, his tone questioning. "Hn?"

Itachi's Sharingan met Utakada's gaze, and the illusion I had formed subtly shifted. Suddenly, the lines on Itachi's face deepened into those of an elderly ninja. I pegged him at about twenty-five. His forehead protector was once again unmarked, as if he had never betrayed Konoha, and the blacks of his Sharingan shifted into a pinwheel.

Utakada's eyes darted over the rest of the battlefield.

Where the first paleness of dawn had begun to seep into the sky, Utakada now saw only storm clouds. Blood spattered the bandages wrapped around Kisame's sheathed sword, and the Akatsuki member wore a gaudy ring inscribed with the kanji for "south." He was also, for some incomprehensible reason, wearing purple nail polish. Then, I saw myself, looking young, incredibly young…

Utakada destroyed both of our illusions with a kai. Shivering, I gratefully disconnected from the vision.

Kisame held up his hands, his monstrosity of a sword still strapped to his back. "Now, let's all calm down and talk about our feelings by using 'I' statements."

A Naruto dropped out of the trees. "I am Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm gonna be Hokage someday."

"I'm not sure if that's really a feeling, but I like your enthusiasm," Kisame said. "Who else would like to share?"

I said, "I have been ordered by the Hokage to kill Utakada Suzumura."

"And how does that make you feel?"

I didn't think my feelings were really relevant to this discussion. "Hn."

"Right. Uh, anyone else?"—Kisame pointed at Sakura with his sword—"How about the Demon of the Mist?"

Sakura let her smoldering sword's tip rest against the grass. "It's been a while since we've done a proper assassination mission, and it is our specialty. So it's pretty exciting. I feel like Sasuke just asked me on a date!"

"That will never happen," I said.

"I know, and once that would have crushed my heart"—Sakura giggled—"But I'm engaged now. Also, I'll probably still get to shish kabob an enemy ninja today, so I feel good about where my life is going."

"Y'know, you Konoha ninja really freak me out," Kisame said. "You're always smiling and laughing and joking around. You're so easy to talk to, like the sort of people who would listen to your life story and really listen. But then you're killing people, and you're still smiling and laughing and telling jokes."

I honestly had no idea what he was talking about. Our team traded confused glances.

"Who are you people?" Utakada asked Itachi as the traitor finished bandaging his wounds.

"We are the Akatsuki," Itachi said, "an evil organization attempting world domination."

"You actually call yourselves evil," Utakada said. "Honesty. That's a pleasant change."

Itachi's sickly smile crept towards his ears. "We plan to gather all of the jinchuriki in order to amass sufficient power to cast a genjutsu on the moon—"

"That is not the plan. Please do not listen to Itachi," Kisame said. "He doesn't know what he's talking about. Half the time, he doesn't even know he's talking."

Itachi protested with a slight movement of the eyebrow. That seemed particularly emotive of him; he must have been really pissed off.

Kisame turned to the rest of us. "Now, you may be wondering why I am a shark."

"I actually having been wondering that," Naruto said.

"Are you some sort of freaky genetic experiment?" Inner Sakura said as she trailed her kunai down Hotaru's face.

"Inner!" Sakura said from the shrubbery. "You can't just ask things like that…Besides, he could be a chakra mutant."

"A freaky chakra mutant." Inner Sakura grinned viciously, patting Hotaru's forehead.

"Actually, I'm a clan ninja," Kisame said.

Hotaru, wriggling against Inner Sakura's hold, said, "Does everybody in your clan look like that?"

"Yup, we were a whole clan full of shark people. Until there was an uprising in the nearest village"—Kisame stared blankly into the distance, a typical ninja pose—"They harpooned us."

Inner Sakura barked out a laugh, then covered her mouth. "Oh. Sorry."

Kisame forced a wobbly smile. "No, I can see why that might be sort of funny. In theory. If it hadn't been my family members flopping around on the shore."

"So you're the last of your clan," I said.

"What? No. There are about a dozen of us," Kisame said. "We get together once a year to trade presents and eat pie. Well, they eat pie, I can't because of…y'know…the teeth."

In the uncomfortable silence that ensued, we could all hear what Itachi was muttering to Utakada.

"With our individualized rings"—Itachi pointed towards a stolen wedding ring on his finger—"We can contact our boss and receive our morally reprehensible orders from him."

"It's becoming increasingly clear that you hate your organization," Utakada said.

Itachi turned wide, innocent, bright red eyes towards him. "Hn?"

"Uh, Itachi," Kisame said. "Would you like to add anything to our conversation? I feel like we're really getting somewhere, but somehow we're all still standing here."

Itachi's unsettling smile turned to a twisted smirk. He leisurely stood, his eyes trailing across the field. He met each of our eyes with his own. Itachi aged, a pinwheel spinning in his eyes. The storm clouds circled overhead.

I shivered slightly, hands pressed in a seal to kai, when Itachi said, "Foolish little brother, still too weak to kill me. Perhaps the next time we meet."

With a gesture, a flock of crows descended on Inner Sakura. She shrieked and popped. The Tsuchigumo clan heiress staggered away from her, her hands flashing seals at a jounin's pace. Her fingers smashed together in the final seal. "Village Obliterator no-Jutsu!"

Then, we were obliterated.

I lost all sensation as I floated through the black void. I couldn't feel my limbs or torso or head. I felt like a bodiless spirit, drifting calmly through a cloud-shrouded night.

When I focused, I could still feel my chakra thrumming through me. Did the dead still carry chakra? That had come up in ethics class, too. There had been great debate over the topic, until the God of Shinobi sent a piece of paperwork from his tower to clarify.

"No," it had read.

The Hokage always told the truth, officially, and we always believed him…officially. I drew on my chakra and whispered with numb lips.

"Kai."

Kisame, Utakada tucked under one arm, had traveled through the trees until he was only a blue dot on the horizon. Itachi, in contrast, moved at a more sedate, jounin's pace. Kisame turned around, bounding across several trees to reach his comrade. He tucked Itachi under his other arm, and they fled.

I couldn't free my teammates from Itachi's genjutsu. Either they would fight their way out, or he would release the illusion once distance weakened their connection.

I turned to Tonbee and Hotaru, the latter of whom stared worriedly after her master.

"Tonbee," I said. "Would you carry Sakura back to your fort for the night?"

"Ah, yes, yes, of course. Anything to help out Konoha," Tonbee said.

Kakashi still sat in his bubble, appearing meditative in the grip of Itachi's genjutsu. A Naruto sprawled on the ground. I rose to follow the Tsuchigumo up the mountain.

"What about your other friends?" Hotaru said.

After several months fighting by their side, saying that we weren't friends—even when none of them could hear it—seemed cold and unfeeling.

Instead, I said, "They'll be fine."