Chapter 27:Oh Mama

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"Notice me, senpai!" they cry when I choke their speak, I'll set this crooked city on fire to light the smokery. Old timers speak of us hushed and clutch their rosaries. I lust after greatness, I'm aiming right at its ovaries. Better run from the future, palooka, you acting like it's safe when the revolution's been called off. There's liars on the loose, if we listen to you we're all lost, the takers of the jewels never singing a tune at all soft.

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At first light, they were moving again. The weary ANBU broke camp as fast as they could the moment they felt their client draw further away. This time, however, the signal began to move due east, breaking from its steady path to the northeast.

They bounded through the trees, a much easier pace now. Either the foreign nin were now confident that they weren't being followed and were easing off of the brutal pace, or they were running straight for something and no longer disguising their intentions. Emi thought over her mental map of Fire Country. There was an abandoned town between here and Land of Hot Water, but beyond the border lay the town of Okisaki Gai, a hub of trade in the less than savory of goods.

The ANBU duo quickly gained on the slower moving group. They moved easier now that they were rested and fed, even if it was only for a few hours.

The town was nameless and had dropped off any official maps since the First Shinobi War. There had been a terrible massacre there. A cult worshiping a death god had long taken over the town and began butchering anyone from outside who had the misfortune of passing too close, civilian, shinobi, or samurai, in ritual sacrifices. The town also had the misfortune of being in the path of Hidden Frost's march south to the Village Hidden in the Whirlpools. The shinobi hadn't taken well to the ritualized flaying and sacrifice of one of their genin teams, and they, along with their allies from the Village Hidden in the Clouds sent a platoon to exact their justice.

Justice was had, Emi thought to herself, as they burst from the trees and landed in the middle of the street running through the town. But it was not enough.

Human bones decorated the homes, macabre windchimes created from ribs, wards over doors crafted from pelvic bones set with teeth, laughing skulls placed over other doors. A temple stood in the center of the town, its walls covered in abstract, fractal designs created entirely from human bones. The most disturbing designs were those that prominently featured skulls that, at first glance, looked deformed with multiple rows of teeth in them all at once, undersized skulls. Those of children.

A pyramid of bones lay in front of the temple, the skeletons of the cultists undisturbed by the scavengers that would have otherwise drug the corpses around.

Something was eerie about this place. Any other place and animals would have reclaimed it, nature would have taken back over what had been carved from the wilds. Wild bamboo would have taken back over gardens, vines climbed houses, roofs would have fallen into homes. But here, weeds did not grow back. The gardens died, not even dried husks remaining. The ground was dry, packed dirt. Dust which hadn't seen the touch of rain in decades. The buildings were intact, changed only by the dirt blown about by the wind. Not even birds sang.

Cursed, a voice in Emi's mind whispered to her.

A sizzling whispered through the air. "Bomb," Emi warned her teammate and they jumped to the sides in time to avoid the explosion. Clumps of earth rained down on them.

"You know," began an accented voice. "I had wondered for long time how you follow." One of the enemy nin strode forward from the awning of the bone temple. "Leader had wonder as well." He wore a mask this time to obscure his facial features, but his blonde hair was visible. He carried loosely in his hands a halberd, a long nasty thing with a long spike on the end and an ax blade on one side mirrored by another smaller blade, and the butt of the weapon reinforced by steel. The weapon hadn't been visible during their earlier attack.

Distraction, Emi's mind whispered to her. Beyond him, their client's chakra signature was becoming more distant. He was buying them time. Judging by the shadows under his eyes and the droop of his posture, they were tiring as well.

Kohaku went the diplomatic route. "You know," he spoke casually as the two of them split up to take up positions on opposite sides of the shinobi, forcing him to divide his attention between the two of them. "If you return our client to us now, we will let you go. The Village Hidden in the Leaves will pursue you no further and you may leave with your lives." It was a lie. After such a bold act and chase the Hidden Leaves would never let them live and tell the tale of their success. Reputations were hard-won and easily lost.

"You ignored the false trail, you know," he ignored Kohaku's offer, casually leaning against his halberd. "I put a lot of work into that trail. It was very insulting to see you pass it. I spent many hours preparing it for you."

"We're better than that," Kohaku replied.

The foreign nin shook his head. "No, I don't think you are. How is your, um, coworker, yes that is word. Your coworker's leg?" He hesitated on the word as if he was trying to choose the appropriate one.

Emi's lips curled into a silent snarl.

"He is not with you. From the blood, I must consider that he is dead." Large flakes of dried blood still stuck to Emi's flak, the drab green color tainted an ugly rust color. Hiroshi wasn't dead. But the enemy had no way of knowing that. "I thought that the Hidden Leaf did not abandon their comrades. I see now I was wrong. Such comradeship must not be true. Maybe another myth? Like your first Fire Shadow?"

"Silence," Emi ground out. "Or we'll add your bones to the cursed bier," she pointed the blade of her tanto to the long-rotted corpses of the cultists.

The blonde laughed without mirth. "All death gods will have their sacrifice." He hefted his weapon and his chakra flared brightly.

The ANBU charged.

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Miles away, Totoro unfolded his legs and got up from his seated position. He could hear the soft booms of explosions in the distance. Ishida had engaged their pursuers, and true to Totoro's theory, in the cursed village. They weren't tracking the squad — they were tracking the woman. Totoro and Haku had gone ahead while Ishida created a large curving path for the Leaf shinobi to follow, but they had blown straight past it and made a bee-line for their client.

Totoro relayed as much to his teammate. The decision was an easy one. In Land of Hot Water, on a coastal town, there was a defected seal master from Land of Whirlpools that wasn't above dealing with unsavory types and creating seals for less than ethical purposes. Depending on what you were willing to pay, of course. He straightened.

His theory had been confirmed. The Hidden Leaf shinobi were tracking them, and not by sight. Not by smell, but something more direct. She must have a tracking seal placed on her. And if she had a tracking seal and her guards a key to it – then who else did? Her client? She had been making a rather large trade deal. But the seal on her, from her client, that made no sense. She didn't look like an escort. Or a noblewoman. She didn't carry herself with the haughty air of an educated woman. But yet she was an accountant with shinobi guards. If it hadn't been for the tertiary objectives assigned to every team sent out, they wouldn't be in this situation.

No, scratch that. If Haku hadn't been such a fucking ravenous nationalist that reported every hint of insubordination, of behavior against approved guidelines, of every fucking thing that might make someone a thought-traitor, he would have ordered his team to observe, make a note, and then fuck off right back to the village. But if he did that, Haku would report him for disobeying village directives to gather every possible Bloodline Limit that they encountered and for "undermining the power of the village and being a saboteur." Maybe his jounin status would save him from the northern work camps, but they'd more likely execute him for being a traitor.

Ishida would do nothing to save him either. He had been plucked from a backwater mining town and saved from starvation, or being sold by his parents for a few coins, and thought the village was the best place in the world. He bought into the propaganda sold by the village that they were all equal, that none of them was above the other. He would look at Totoro and shrug his shoulders, and say that if Haku saw traitorous behavior, then he must really be a traitor. A small part of him hoped that those Leaf nin skewered Ishida and his stupid fucking halberd.

Sometimes, Totoro really fucking hated his home. But where would he go?

Haku hefted the deadweight of the woman. "Where to, comrade?" Totoro really hated that fucking word in particular. There was no comradery between the two of them. Ishida might have been a blind fool who followed whoever offered him the most safety and stability, but Haku was intelligent enough to know better. And he was still a rat. Krysa. He spat.

"Need to find a seal master," he gestured to the woman draped over Haku's shoulders, unconscious. "Ishida just engaged them. They're following her directly. Let's go."

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The town of Okisaki Gai was one of the places that decent people didn't go. For one, it wasn't a town in a traditional sense. The town was on a lake formed by the joining of three rivers on the edge of a rather large area of wetlands created by the same rivers. Several miles out, the wetlands would turn into an estuary where the wetlands and its freshwater would meet with Bay of Minerals and the saltwater within. Okisaki Gai was a floating city created around a peninsula by a series of docks and buildings on stilts above the water. Boats were the main means of passage in Okisaki Gai, and the streets were the waterways. But the primary reason that decent people didn't go to Okisaki Gai, was that it was a hub for the black market.

Located just on the other side of the border between Land of Hot Water and Land of Fire, Okisaki Gai existed in a limbo state. The noble in charge of the province didn't care what happened in Okisaki Gai as long as he got his cut of the profits, and the town was on the other side of the Border from Land of Fire, so any who cared particularly enough about their activities had to resort to underhanded methods to do anything about it. Land of Fire's daimyo had clashed before with Land of Hot Water's, but that had been years before. Now, they enjoyed a half-hearted truce, neither really wanting, nor caring enough about the other, to break it for a little human trafficking here and there.

In their eyes, profitable business was profitable business, and the only people really affected by it were the peasants in the area. And peasants belonged to the land, and by extension, to the lords. The previous Fire daimyo had a disdain for trafficking and regularly sent out his men to stamp it out, but his son, an arrogant man with little compassion, was more the type to turn his nose up in disgust at it and tell his nobles to hide it better from his sight.

Corruption was the lifeblood of Okisaki Gai. Without it, the city would never have been birthed.

So Okisaki Gai flourished with black market goods, the sale of any type of human you could want, drugs, weapons, and mercenaries. It even boasted its own sealing master who wasn't really a master, but a journeyman, who had barely completed his apprenticeship. But who really counted that?

Ken Ichigo was a self-styled sealing master who didn't discriminate when it came to who lobbied his services, as long as their coins were gold. He lived a good life. In his early thirties, he had a few prostitutes whose company he regularly enjoyed, easy access to any type of narcotic he wished, and plenty of money to fund it. The only thing he truly feared was the Sealing Guild back in Land of Whirlpools where he completed his apprenticeship finding out what he had done with his knowledge, and so he kept a low profile. He didn't display the geometric mandala that was the signet of the Sealing Guild, even though he had already earned the right to it.

The Sealing Guild would come for him if only for the crime of passing himself off as a master, which he had done so many times over that he had lost count. He had plenty of customers though. Rich civilians, hidden villages that wanted to conceal their actions, and missing-nin had all graced his doorstep. Seals brought in gold aplenty, and clients with few scruples.

So, when a duo of shinobi whose village of origin he didn't enquire of arrived on the doorstep of his shop with a young, unconscious blonde woman, he let them in. At first, he assumed that they wanted a seal placed on her. It wouldn't be the first and it wouldn't be the last time that some fat noble or businessman wanted his mistresses kept in line.

"Who is this?" He inquired, gesturing to the woman once they placed her on a worktable he kept clear for his living clients.

"No one you need concern yourself with," was the reply from the dark-skinned shinobi who leaned against the wall with arms crossed. The response wasn't atypical.

Ichigo simply hummed and began to gather his brushes and inks. "And the service you request?"

"Nothing complicated," returned the dark-skinned shinobi with an airy tone. "Just a seal removal."

Ichigo frowned and turned his back to the shinobi as he bustled around the sun-dappled workshop. Papers were strewn across counters, results of his theories as he attempted self-study to propel his knowledge. One didn't become a master by repeating the same seals that they learned to copy, after all.

Removals were often complicated, especially if the seal was designed with the intent of not being removed. He inquired as to the location of the seal. His frown only deepened when they said that they didn't know. Ichigo laid out his tools on the table and retrieved a bowl and a jar containing a white powder and began mixing a small amount of the powder with water in the bowl, mixing the two and adding small pinches of the powder and water until he was satisfied with the consistency. Once the mixture dissolved and turned completely clear, he dipped his brush into it and began to brush it over her skin in very light and thin layers. Usually seals applied to living flesh had to be placed in locations of importance. Tenketsu points, nerve clusters, arteries, locations that were important to the body's wellbeing. A randomly placed seal wouldn't be as effective as one placed over, say, the heart, where the Gate of Death was located.

After the major tenketsu points, the spine was the first place he checked. And there it was. Disguised as a small, faded crescent moon among the freckles on her skin surrounding her C3 vertebra. He brushed his clear ink over it to coax it out into its full form and watched as the seal slowly unfurled, ink dancing along her skin, revealing itself to him.

It was an advanced seal. Ichigo could recognize it, see what elements it had in it and what they were supposed to do, but the design was one created by a master, beyond a journeyman's skill. As it unfurled and exposed itself further and further, causing him to pull her shirt back to view its entirety, he blanched.

"Where," he cleared his throat and began again. "Where did you find this woman?"

The dark-skinned shinobi pushed off of the wall. "Nowhere you need concern yourself with."

Ichigo didn't miss how the other shinobi took up a position in his blind spot. He took a deep breath gestured with a finger to the seal. "There are only two places you could have taken this woman from. The Village Hidden in the Leaves, or from Land of Whirlpools, and both of them will come looking for the master who removed this seal."

"They won't have any way of knowing."

The false master shook his head. "You don't understand seals. I do. This array here," he drew a finger to the spot, "is linked to a master seal that communicates this seal's last location. If I remove it, this element here will show here," he gestured to the workshop around them, "as the last location. There are only a few masters who use this particular style of seals, and four of them live in the Land of Whirlpools, and one lives in The Village Hidden in the Leaves." He didn't have to explain the fact that the Sealing Guild had great influence in both.

The shinobi didn't particularly seem to care. A blade pressed to his throat. "Just now gaining a conscience, whore-brander?" The shinobi hissed into his ear. "You'll remove this seal here and now, or I swear to all the gods in the mountains, I'll spill your blood across this fucking place and you can bleed out like the hookers you marked when they lose their value." The blonde shinobi pressed the blade, making rivulets of blood run down Ichigo's throat and soak into his shirt.

Ichigo nodded his head frantically. "I'll have to draft a few designs first, but I can do it," he quickly promised.

The shinobi behind him removed the blade and shoved him forward roughly. Ichigo barely caught himself from falling on his face. One hand pressed to his neck to stop the bleeding, he quickly gathered paper to copy the seal and begin his drafts.

A shame. Okisaki Gai was a good town with plenty of work for someone of his talents. He'd have to abandon it in favor of somewhere further from Whirlpools' influence. Land of Waterfalls had some beautiful weather this time of year, he'd heard.

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Hanako was trapped in an ever-evolving nightmare. The last thing she saw before darkness enveloped her was the twisting hand gestures that created shinobi magic. And after that – Fear.

Snapping jaws had pursued her through a snow-covered forest as she ran. When she found a dimly lit cabin deep in the woods, she ran inside, only barely avoiding being dragged back out again by the pack of wolves pursuing her. A fire was lit inside the one-room cabin, the only source of light. Dust covered every surface, no one had been there in a while. She huddled in front of the fire, trying to get warm from the biting frost outside. Hanako froze at the sound of a deep, huffing growl. Through a windowpane, she saw a large, brown-black fur-covered body prowling outside before claws and teeth attacked the door. The door rattled and flexed, barely holding against the attacking animal outside.

Hanako grabbed a hot poker that resting in the fire and screamed as the doors were rattled, windowpanes broke, and the monsters outside poured in.

Then, somehow, she was on a street, the collar of her long coat turned up against the rain, walking quickly as she was followed by a strange, tall man. She ducked and dodged around strangers dressed in dark clothing as she tried to lose him. Cold water hit her face and her fingers could barely curl, they were so frozen. Water squelched in her rainboots, numbing her toes.

The abrupt change in atmosphere was the first thing that warned her that something was terribly wrong. First, the shift from forest to city was too abrupt. Secondly, she hadn't been to Chicago since she had visited her grandparents nearly three years ago now. She quickly ducked into a corner store and the man walked past her hiding spot, on down the street. The faces of the people around her were blurs. Generic, an almost CGI'd look. Hanako took a deep breath to calm her pounding heart and tried to think.

Hanako quickly realized that she was trapped in an illusion, and unlike the times that she had mind-walked with Pumba, she didn't have any control over it. Or, she raised a hand in front of her and inspected it closely, maybe she did…

A bell rattling too loudly distracted her. The tall man walked through the door to the corner store. Hanako was on her feet in an instant. She didn't know what would happen to her if he caught her, but she knew it wouldn't be anything good. This was her own mind, after all. Then again, what was the worst she could imagine? The cans and glass jars on the shelves around her rattled as she raised her arms.

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A/N: Just in case it wasn't clear, Hanako's trapped in a genjutsu while this is all going. But, her being a civilian and all, she doesn't have any way of breaking free from it.