We have reached the action chapter! I hope you are not too disapointed.

Chapter 30

Coming to blows

Day 5

Shino was woken out of his light sleep that morning by the frantic buzzing of Kai-chan. She paced across his forehead like a human would in a panic, repeating words across his consciousness: "the mistress!"

He hurried to wake the others.

"What is it?" Kiba said tiredly.

"Kai-chan senses something," he said.

Mere moments later they trailed Kai-chan as she flew off towards what she sensed. Nearly a quarter of a mile later Kai-chan began flying in circles, curiously detaining a mosquito until they arrived and Shino called both insects to him.

"What is it Shino-kun?" Hinata asked as he peered down at the insects through his glasses.

"The mosquito has fed on Sachi-chan. It is how Kai-chan sensed her presence," Shino explained.

Kiba sniffed the air. "That means she has to be somewhere close, right? She hasn't been through this area."

"It's not as simple as that," Shino said with a wry smile. He felt a rush of pride at Sachi's brilliance. He knew Sachi was intelligent but to have pulled this off required talent, ingenuity and sheer genius. "It has a message from Sachi-chan."

XXXXXXXXXXX

Sachi started that morning like any other while she was held captive, a trip to the bathroom, getting dressed for the day and having breakfast. But this morning Hiro hadn't come to find her so she had sat in the garden to pass the time with a book.

Waiting for someone to rescue her seemed like the worst plan she could think of. But Sachi knew that she wasn't a fighter and she couldn't outrun a ninja. She only hoped that by not fighting she could delay the inevitable treatment that she would receive here.

She scratched at the bug bites on her arms. Knowing that there were dozens of mosquitos out there looking for Shino was the only comfort that she had done something to help herself.

Sachi still didn't like the killer bee upon her head. It felt nothing like the kikai that she was so fond of and she would not accept it. It seemed her refusal to attach to it made it hard for the insect to be attuned to her. While it would buzz an indication of an object in her way or something of the sort she put forth no effort into teaching the insect as well as learning from it's cues.

So she ignored it wholly and completely and tried to push down the disgust that grew for the insect and it's master.

She shifted the braille book in her hands to scratch her arms again. She paused and canted her head to the side. What was that sound? A massive buzzing from her left began to drown out most other sounds around her.

The man that was assigned to guard her suddenly grabbed her arm and wrenched her out of her seat.

"You need to get back to your room," he said.

"Hey! Why?" she shouted back as she was dragged along.

"We are under attack. You aren't safe out here."

"Who- Who's attacking?" She tried desperately to wrench her arm out of the man's grip. This could be her chance! While everyone was distracted she could escape and run... anywhere but here.

Unfortunately, she lacked either the luck or the skill to do so.

The guard grabbed her around the middle and dragged her along under his arm back to her room. She shouted and thrashed to get loose and was soon placed within her bedroom doorway.

"Quiet!" he whispered harshly. "You will be safe as long as you stay in here. I won't let anyone pass."

Even the guard seemed deluded into thinking she wanted to stay here. She threw her book on the bed. She couldn't stay here. This could be her only chance to leave.

She shrieked when she heard the clash of metal on metal and the sounds of fighting just outside her door. Just when she began thinking that staying put might be the safer alternative to walking out into the middle of a battle she heard a distinctly different buzzing much more familiar and much closer than the one in the distance.

"Mistress Sachi!"

"Kai-chan!" she shouted in relief. Their reunion was short-lived as the bee upon her head buzzed angrily and flew at Kai-chan. "No!" she shouted at them as they began to fight.

She could sense the insects just out of her reach above her head. Kai-chan latched onto the bee and began draining it's chakra while the bee tried to dislodge it.

"Help is coming Mistress," Kai-chan said. The bee flailed wildly and shook Kai-chan free. With one swift movement, Sachi's beloved Kai-chan was impaled by it's stinger.

Sachi watched with horror as she sensed the kikai fall to the ground, already dead.

She picked up the book on her bed and quickly waved it through the air catching the bee and slammed it against the wall, killing it instantly.

She dropped the book with a scream as she heard a body fall to the floor just outside her room. It seemed that fight was over and the door slid open.

"Sachi-chan, there you are!"

"Kiba-kun?" she asked with disbelief. "Is that really you?" She let him pull her outside.

"Yeah. No time to explain. We are getting you out of here." He lifted her up by the waist and placed her on Akamaru's back. "Head down, hold on and be quiet," he commanded.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

When Shino and Shibi separated from the team they had to take the long way around the compound to avoid detection. They snuck closer and closer to the west wall If they wanted to be a good distraction they would have to be convincing. They needed to act as if they had no prior knowledge of the compound, They sent out a few dozen trackers to get the lay of the land, ones that were sure to be detected by fellow insect users fairly soon. It was only a minute and a half before both Aburame were confronted by three Kamizuru.

Their attack was quick and precise. If the two had not been lying in wait for just that, they might have been dead. They stood, locked in a pause while they measured their enemies skill.

"I thought I smelled the stink of Aburame," Hiro said.

Insects bled from the five hosts and the air became thick with buzzing and tension.

"We know you have Sachi Hara. Return her whole and unharmed and your deaths may be relatively painless," Shino said.

Hiro barked out a laugh. "And if she doesn't want to leave?"

No one spoke.

Hiro continued. "Sachi-chan hasn't fought us since she arrived. Are you so sure she wants to return with you? She knows the role you cursed Aburame have played in nearly wiping out the great Kamizuru clan. I'm sure it hasn't escaped even your notice that Sachi-chan is particularly compatible with we insect users. She knows of our plans for her -to restore our clan- yet she hasn't even tried to run. It seems to me like Sachi-chan wants to stay."

The confirmation of what they planned to use Sachi for burned like fire in his chest. His eyebrows lowered. With that confirmation, he resolved to eliminate the threat to her well-being permanently.

A petty niggling sensation in his mind was infuriated with Hiro's casual use of her name. It was not the use of her given name nor the familiar honorific attached to it, one that Shino had only begun to use, himself after they had started dating. No. It was the way Hiro said it, like a hushed whisper in a lover's ear, with a tenderness he did not earn or deserve.

"I am not inclined to believe you. I know her better than you," Shino said with conviction.

"Oh?" he said with a winning smirk and a taunting tone. "Then you know of that oh-so-soft hum when she is content? And the way those nimble fingers map every inch of skin?" Hiro smirked. "Perhaps. But I know things that you don't. Because you've never had her, have you?" Shino did not respond and that was all the answer Hiro needed. His smirk grew.

"She moans like a cat in heat when I'm rough with her. And those hands," he hissed in a breath,"the things she can do with those hands! Do you know when I take her every night she screams my name: Hiro, Hiro, Hiro!"

Never before had Shino felt such rage. His mind worked furiously to find a just punishment and fit it into his battle strategy. Another part of his mind played the scenes that Hiro painted. It couldn't be true. It couldn't. Sachi wasn't like how he had described her. Sachi, his Sachi was innocent.

"Calm down, Shino. He is baiting you," Shibi intoned.

"But!" Hiro said loudly and dramatically, drawing all attention to himself. He held a single finger in the air. "But do you know the worst part about this sorry situation?" Hiro pointed his finger at Shino. "You really thought she was yours. Didn't you? All that time spent with her, the dates, the festival and that kiss..."

Something in Shino sunk so low he thought he might actually fall to the forest floor. There was no way Hiro could know all of that unless he was spying on them. That thing that had sunk in him made his stomach wrench. Unbridled shame and guilt consumed him. He, a trained jonin, had not even noticed they had been watched. That only meant there were signs he hadn't noticed. And it was entirely his fault that Sachi was taken.

"You poor man." Hiro tutted. "I pity you. You thought she was your's when, really, she just hadn't met me yet."

A battle broke out as the kikai advanced. Each side took as much as they gave and insects quickly began to litter the ground. One of the Kamizuru dropped, then another and the Aburame were not without injury.

Shibi had exhausted his reserve of beetles. He only watched on as the remaining two men faced off against each other.

When Hiro and Shino were the last left standing and their battle intensified. Trading their loss of insects with kunai and shuriken they fought mercilessly.

The clang of metal on metal rang out as they collided. Their kunai shrieked and shook under the combined force as they stared into the eyes of their enemy.

"You realize you've already lost, haven't you?" Hiro hissed in Shino's face. "Even if you win the battle I've already had the girl!"

They flew back from each other, retreating to procure more time. Hiro's hands flew through seals and a flurry of bees swarmed Shino.

"It doesn't matter what you do now! Now that my killer bees have you you'll be stung to death!"

"You lose your advantage by talking too much," Shino said from behind him.

A clone, he thought too late.

Hiro didn't have time to look around before blows rained down upon his flesh and while he returned them with a few of his own when the proverbial dust cleared Shino stood holding the collar of a bloody and panting Hiro.

He looked to find his comrades dead.

"You damn Aburame can't leave well enough alone!"

Shino brought their faces closer together, where blazing blue met the flash of sunglasses.

"You took Sachi-chan from me. Did you really think we wouldn't come for her?"

He looked to his dead family around him, he gripped Shino's free arm tightly and reached for a kunai. "You're not going to kill me. I won't let the last Kamizuru be killed by another damn Aburame!" Hiro immediately flipped the kunai in his hand and drew it across his own throat.

This is probably the best action scene I have ever written. Sad, considering I have tried many times before. Please let me know what you think.