uuuh hi sorry i forgot to post this here for so long ? uhh pls forgive me with a double chapter update xoxo
They had retraced Rat and Rabbit's steps, from the Capital of Water Country, to the love hotel in its red lantern district, to the isolated countryside hours away. The trail had inexplicably gone cold.
The forest was still ruined from a violent, desperate battle. Blackened trees without leaves stuck up wildly, like birthday candles on a melting cake. The muddy ground was littered in splintered wood and ninja tools. Fortunately for Hound, rain hadn't come to wash away their lingering scents. Or the dried blood, for that matter.
The only sign that Rabbit had ever been here were the shattered pieces of her porcelain mask.
"Do you have anything?" Spider asked.
He nodded.
There was another, third scent that hovered around the area like the mist of a low hanging cloud. The scent of the attacker.
Peculiar, wasn't it?
Rat and Rabbit had interrogated, then assassinated a man who was an oligarch of Kiri and only one person came after them. Not a team of ANBU or Hunter-nin. One guy.
They smelled like the dank musk of a cave, and like hot ash and cold earth. Like bone-deep cynicism and righteous fury. And somehow, there was a sweet, familiar undertone– like those strawberry candies that old people always gave to you.
"Strange," muttered Hound.
"What?" demanded Nohara Kanae. She stuck out amongst the ANBU operatives in her jounin uniform. She was in Hound's personal space instantly, glaring at him through the mask.
"Rat's scent lingers here because she was left here to die by their assailant."
"Assailant?" Otter exclaimed, incredulous. "Singular?"
He stood in front of a damaged, bloodsoaked pine tree where a branch seems to have been used to impale Rabbit. As there was a fairly large amount of dried blood, and the injuries Rat received weren't consistent with impalement, it can only be assumed that Rabbit was the one injured.
"Yes," Hound said. "There's only the scent of one enemy combatant here, and it's heavy. Then it just disappears abruptly– with Rabbit's."
"So our assailant, whoever they are, abducted Rabbit for whatever reason," Raccoon said slowly.
Hound nodded.
The more they learned about this, the worse it seemed to get.
It's common knowledge that the only trees that survive in Water Country's nutrient-poor soil are evergreens. The stakes that had shot up out of the ground, wild and twisty like wind-whipped baby trees, were the same kind of deciduous Hashirama tree native to Fire Country. In fact, they looked eerily similar to the tree limbs that Tenzou used in combat.
That…unnerved Hound.
Tenzou happened to be busy on a S-rank bodyguarding mission in the Land of Lightning. He knew this because he assigned it himself.
Unless he could somehow be in two places at once… It was highly unlikely that this mystery opponent had used the wood style. Unless they did. Orochimaru was still on the loose. Hound knew never to underestimate life's ability to be terrible.
"D'you think it could be some sort of teleportation jutsu?" Raccoon asked.
A shuddering sigh escaped Spider. Otter moved to grab his chin in an aborted movement– a nervous tic. Nohara Kanae, who had been silent this entire time, holding on to the largest piece of Rabbit's shattered mask, clutched onto the broken porcelain so hard it drew blood.
Everyone knew what a teleportation jutsu meant.
The Hiraishin had died with Minato-sensei.
If however this enemy had kidnapped Rabbit, for whatever reason–
Information, his mind nags at him. Nothing else makes sense. Rabbit knew something she shouldn't have.
A kekkei-genkai? A modified version of the Hiraishin itself? An entirely new jutsu?
This threat was entirely more serious than they'd thought.