Runnin'
Her chakra was sluggish and just beyond her reach. She felt almost like she was lying on a flat piece of glass, observing the river that she knew belonged to her churn and breathe less than an inch from her, and yet, for all of her ability in recognizing it, it could just as well be on the moon.
Unreachable.
Yet, the fact that she was able to feel that something was amiss at all meant that something could be done.
Slowly, blindly, she metaphorically pressed herself against the 'glass' slowly but surely mapping it, feeling that the perception of flat smoothness was only that: a perception. A trick on her senses. After all, chakra couldn't be defined as 'flat'. In a sense, it was like a liquid, but one that couldn't be forced into a specific form. It couldn't be stopped, for it meant that whatever fluid grip the seals had on it would slip away, and it couldn't be erased, because then Karin would die.
With growing confidence, Karin completely abandoned the faint feelings that her body kept sending her, and completely focused on that way of feeling-not-feeling that she was applying to her esoterical constraints.
After a lenght of time she couldn't measure, she found a moment of balance: as if she was on a cusp over the smooth glass. No, it couldn't be defined so paltry, but it mattered not: it was an imperfection, and that meant leverage.
Her focus narrowed on that 'cusp' seeing how it barely wobbled in order to consent her chakra to move even while it kept her from direcly touching it.
But she could feel the barrier, and so, she could touch the 'glass'.
Blundering in the dark, she eventually found the other two points where the seals kept her chakra moving even if beyond her reach.
By that point, she finally was ready.
Quietly, almost shyily, she started pushing and pulling on those three points, stretching them in opposite directions so that the tension would simply make them more nociceable to her senses, then she 'dangled' them, for lack of a better term, as if they were loose teeth about to fall off.
After some time, the 'knots' became easier to manipulate, and eventually, she pulled on them enough for her chakra on the other side of the barrier to pool in the dents she created. And just like that, the seal on her throat cracked, the other two lacked the balance inscribed in their build, and she was once more alive.
Warmth washed over her senses along with a deluge of information carried to her by her instinctive sensing of the surroundings. Liquid strength trickled through her muscles ready to be unleashed, and her eyes, still closed under the juta sack over her head, opened.
There were five chakra signatures laying around. One of them was further from the others, quietly and unfeelingly searching into the night while the others slept. Carefully, she analyzed what she could: the sentinel was a female naturaly inclined towards Suiton.
She named her Vigil in her head. The first shinobi she focused on had a larger than average pool of chakra, Doton attuned, she named him Deep. Arrow was a thin female that would barely reach Karin's chin where they standing one in front of the other, while Red was a powerfully Katon aligned male whose sleep was a little too light for the Uzumaki' tastes.
The last shinobi she analyzed was a large, burly man with a relatively small chakra pool: instinctively, Karin felt his murky and almost poisonous chakra. Likely a Genjutsu specialist. Karin concluded, and named him First, because he would be her first target.
With a minute application of chakra, ropes fell from her wrists, marred with the ash of the broken seals that should have kept her unable to access her power, and then she was ready.
With her head still under the juta sack and with a deliberate action, Karin intertwined her fingers together, keeping her attention towards Vigil, the only shinobi awake that could most easily spot her actions.
Her chakra eagerly answered to her entructions as she manipulated it as thin as she could, before spreading it like a cover over First, whose sleep deepened slightly once her illusion took hold. She had to match the unique characteristics of the shinobi's chakra, so she moved lightly and carefully, making her Genjutsu complementary to the man's natural feel.
Arrow and Deep were next, even given their differences and unique feel of their chakra, her Genjutsu spread over their sleeping forms, almost like mist, before quietly slipping in them, turning their sleep into something that resembled a light coma more than a deep slumber.
She smiled under the cover of her juta sack, overjoyed by her tentative success, only to immediately focus once more when she felt the delicate exercise she was carrying on almost slip from her fingers. Steeilng herself, she parted her illusion once more, ensnaring Red in her sleeping web.
She was... confused, on one hand, she only felt relish in seeing the results of her success, on the other... No. She decided. The life of no shinobi can be valued more than my freedom.
She only wanted to run, run from her pursuers, run from what she had done in order to remain alive.
Safe from the notoriously light seep of her nearby captors, she slowly undid her bindings, and soon enough her eyes could roam through the night, the moon and stars bringing enough light for her to see, not that she needed it: Earth natured chakra gave her a precise feedback of everything in her surroundings, and so she slowly rose to her feet, chakra circulating in order to keep her body from protesting because of the effort it took.
The nearest shinobi left two kunai ready to be thrown in case of emergency, and they quickly found their way into the Uzumaki's hands.
With a flick of her wrist, the first sailed in a high curve soon enough glinting off in the distance while she readied her second blow: her attention unwavering on Vigil.
When the first weapon she threw made some noise during its descent, Vigil's chakra became suddenly attentive: as if the stony vigilance he had until that point had just turned into a steely bear trap.
Focused as he was towards the origin of the unnatural sound of a kunai landing in the sand, he didn't react in time when the second buried itself into the back of his head, making him crumple forward in a not so quiet tumble.
Still, Karin's genjutsu had induced an extremely deep sleep in her captors, and none moved.
A feral baring of teeth took place on the Uzumaki's face then. memories of abuse at the hands of Kusa, both towards her and towardds her mother, suddenly washing over her consciousness.
She moved methodically, fishing another kunai free from the closes shinobi. And quietly walking from one to another, she sunk the lenght of steel into their bodies. Silent death was given away four other times that night, and during each second of that endeavour, Karin could only focus on keeping her motions controlled, her chakra muted, her will steady.
So, again and again, she killed.
Because they kidnapped her.
Because she wouldn't need to be saved once more.
Because she wanted to. Because she wasn't weak. Because... Beacuse...
Karin blinked in surprise when she found fat tears streaming down her cheeks, her adrenaline high finally coming down as she hesitated.
A part of her knew that the treath was ended, and that the safest thing to do now, was to carefully check her captors belongings, before stocking up with anything useful, hide the bodies and run away, faking a trail or two.
She knew what she had to do, but as she bent over one of her captors, his dead body moved minutely, gravity finally pulling one arm free from a fold of the sack in which he had been sleeping.
And because of that unexpected and wrong movement, shaken by the current events, Karin ran.
DAIKI POV
26th May, year 14 AK
The forest blurred around us as we ran. The imposing trees, the vibrant green leaves, full of life because of the summer and the ever increasing number of corpses that were unavoidably left to rot because of the War, nothing of it truly managed to get the attention it deserved.
I was busy trying to find a way around the less than wonderful task I had been assigned to. It was lucky that Itachi was sent as 'supervisor'. I admitted to myself, my eyes briefly darting to the black-clad shinobi at my side.
It wasn't that I needed either Naruto or Jiraya alive for my plans, since I was about to be in a good enough position to make the Black Zetsu disappear, and in any case the Biju couldn't be trusted into the hands of mankind, not if I had any hope for the change that I had begun to gain traction. There is only so much fighting spirit that can withstand a hopeless battle after all.
"Danzo, Jiraya, and the Kyubi Jinchuriki." I subvocalized while I bounced from one tree to another, already starting to see the forest becoming less thick, the trees unable to withstand the desertic environment that we would find further south.
Itachi didn't answer, limiting himself to raise an eyebrow in my direction in the lull between jumps.
"Well, that's awfully convenient, isn't it?" I went on, keeping in mind the several steps I had still to complete before feeling safe enough with targeting the Akatsuki more or less openly.
I needed to find a way to heal Itachi, and Danzo presented one. In particular, my mind slotted together the situation I was in with one of the things I somewhat needed to accomplish down the line: "How much have you kept of the stuff you raided from Orochimaru?"
A flat gaze was answer enough, and it stole a faint grin from me. Kabuto had done some mumbo jumbo to rebuild the hole in Sasuke's chest in the manga, had he not? And I knew that Itachi's had a problem with his lungs. Oh, I had considered transplant, it wouldn't be such a hassle to find a shinobi that matched the blood type and build of the Uchiha. I would simply need to wring out almost all the chakra from the donor, least it conflicted Itachi's, cut where I needed to cut, and heal where I needed to heal.
A case of chakra poisoning was more or less obligatory, at least in my opinion as a med-nin, there was just no way around it, but since I would be already messing with my comrade's lungs, how difficult would it be to include some of Hashirama's cells in the process? I had access to both the Edo Tensei of the Shodaime and soon to the strange fuckery that Danzo had employed to turn his arm into a deadly-bullshittery related weapon.
"What are you thinking about?" Itachi apparently couldn't read my mind even with his sharingan lazily spinning in my direction, so I simply smiled as an answer, ducking under a low hanging branch before returning my attention to the environment.
"Your genjutsu is pretty good, is it not?" I spoke to change topic, "And there is that strange technique of body possession that allows you to puppeteer from a distance dead bodies, isn't there?"
At the Uchiha faint nod, I went ahead, thinking of yet another power up that would benefit my plans: "Well, your original dumbass plan was to let Sasuke kill you, and eventually to take your eyes, yes?"
I kept whispering, knowing that Itachi was barely close enough to listen, and only after having checked with an istant of stillness that we were, in fact, alone. "How hard would it be to convince Sasuke of your death by his hand?"
The perfectly blank expression of Itachi momentarly staggered at the mention of his brother, only to be rebuilt almost faster than I could percieve.
"It... wouldn't be impossible." he reluctantly admitted, sliding off a trunk and running across an empty clearing.
"Super eyes for the both of you then." I nodded thoughtfully, thinking about how I would need to basically kidnap Sasuke after his 'killing' of Itachi in order to perform surgery without his consent upon his eyes.
Those were plans for the future, as soon as I was somewhat settled within the Akatsuki, I could proceed to actually healing Itachi, then we would take care of his eyes, and I hoped that he would naturally develop the Rinnegan, even if I wasn't sure about the bullshittery of the Sage's sons resurrections. In theory, if my derailing of Canon hadn't changed it all, Sasuke and Naruto were the two big pieces on the board, but, always in theory, Sasuke's eyes would be transplanted into Itachi, solving half of the puzzle. Would using Hashirama's cells be enough to trigger the change from Eternal Mangeyko to Rinnegan? Well, worst comes to worst I'll steal some DNA from Naruto once he's in custody of the Akatsuki. After all the Biju need to be extracted in order if memory serves me well.
I blinked, stopping at the edge of the forest once I realized that Itachi had stopped running at my side. I turned, spotting him staring hollowly ahead of himself, apparently blind to the happenings of the rest of the world.
I sighed, walking back to the thoughtful Uchiha: "Once we're done, I'll help you fake your death." I blurted out the first idiotic thing that came to my mind.
But hey, at least I got his attention: "There will be a lot of shit to do, and your suicidal tendencies have gone on long enough." I landed a hand on his shoulder, "C'mon, we've got a clear objective: once we're close enough, I'll take Danzo and the goons he'll have around, I'll leave you up to tussle with Jiraya and mind-fuck the Jinchuriki. One glance, and he's your mad dog on a leash."
"The point isn't disappearing." he whispered, his voice almost too faint for me to hear, "I just... can't keep going. I don't want to, I'm the wrong man for..."
"The right man in the worng place can change the world, Itachi." I turned towards him fully then, focusing all of my attention on the kinslayer, "Force answers force, war breeds war, and death only brings death. To break this cycle, one must do more than just act without any thought or doubt." I landed my hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly: "I cannot punish someone for the way they think, not when I'm so acutely aware of how this world's culture shapes the mind of its people, to stop this cycle, I must break the chain, but I cannot do this alone, Itachi."
I thought that I saw some measure of hope moving behind the Uchiha's red irises, but it micht have been simple wishful thinking on my part.
"Very well." with those unsympathetic words, Itachi became once more the unfeeling blade that he had been for so long, and we returned to our run.
After a while, I stilled myself, my sensing blossoming to truly outrageous distances once the natural chakra trickled into my system, and I smiled: "Found them."
I channeled chakra into the underside of a plate of my armour, unsealing a rather large Summoning Scroll that I kept on my person since Konoha's Crush. With a quick application of chakra, I summoned a Kage Bunshin, and handed it over, before turning towards Itachi: "Karin is almost colliding with Jiraya and Naruto, can you push her until she stumbles on this?"
"Why?" the unreadable gaze of Itachi pinned me where I was while my clone started running, masking his presence as he went.
"Because I can only offer opportunities to Karin, she is the one that has to chose to either take them or ignore them."
"That was Sarutobi's Summoning Scroll." the flat voice of my companion made me smile widely, "And you don't want to meet Enma as a potential summoner, since he may know stuff about you from the Sandaime, and you cannot risk that information to reach the two dead Kage you have drafted."
I blinked in surprise for a second, astounded by Itachi's far too efficient mind: "Well, that and Elephants and Snakes are ill suited to Karin."
"And you want to keep your faction's skills diversified."
I nodded at the Uchiha, that had openly saw right through me, and wondered briefly how the world would have turned if he hadn't been diagnosed with a terminal illness.
"I'll do it." he confirmed, and once I heard those words, I flung myself ahead, my senses zeroing in on the faint tracks of a rather large team of shinobi that surrounded a muted presence, as if a part of it was sealed away.
AN
Not much to say for this chapter, just a setting up in the first part and some insight in the second.
About Karin: do you remember Naruto chakra-sharing bullshittery at the final battle? How much easier would that be for Karin, who can actually see the chakra she's trying to touch? Genjutsu for the fucking win!
About Daiki's reasoning: why wouldn't the MC exploit to the best of his possibilities and not indifferent abilities the resources he has? A Rinnegan Itachi sounds like a wonderful ally to have.
And to those so eager to jump down my troath: no, the Biju are still all around, but keeping a kid unconscious isn't all that difficult when you have Akatsuki's resources on hand. For all of their planning, Pain is a shinobi: when Naruto is on hand, near other pieces on the board that have their own agendas, why wouldn't he try to get 4 birds with one stone?
Think about it, without revealing his hand, he manages to: 1) Test Daiki (he sends him against strong Konoha nin), 2) Recover a Jinchuriki, 3) Kill Jiraya (who is fucking strong and would oppose Pain), 4) Kill Danzo (who plays chess with the world, and has fucked Akatsuki over with Hanzo). Even if not all the objectives are met, he risks only Itachi, who is the only resource that he places on this venture.
And Daiki already expressed his opinion of Biju in the hands of mankind back when he bullshitted Hashirama, did he not?
For all of the obligatory simpathy Daiki must have for Naruto, he's only a piece on the board. If our MC stumbles on a way to extract a Biju without killing the host, good, but if not... he's already riding the ass of the equivalent of a World War, why would he think so hard about collateral damage? He already knows that the war is is fault, since it didn't happen in canon.
And hipocrisy or not, Jiraya stopped him from saving Hana, and he's one of the people that could have actually done something to push forward his 'peace'. Why the hell should the MC have an emotional attachment to the Toad Summoner?
