There was a small problem. The thirty-foot ice-covered wall proved to be more difficult to scale than they had hoped, and they now crouched behind a snowdrift, trying to come up with either a way to climb the wall, or an alternative way in.
Metsuki sat and let her mind wander from the mission, back to what she had seen in the genjutsu. She absent-mindedly rubbed her seal. Neji stood, ready to try again.
Metsuki stood along with the others, moving to the front. It was her turn to lead them up, and she was not going to fail miserably like the rest of them. Looking up at the alternating kunai, she grinned and rubbed the warmth back into her frozen hands. Two of the fingers on her right hand had been broken, and they burned and throbbed, but she ignored it. At least they aren't bleeding, she thought.
She removed her cloak, attaching it to the other's as they had done before to make an improvised rope. She tied it around her thin waist and began to climb.
The metal handles of the kunai slowly froze her hands again, even managing to stop her throbbing fingers. She climbed slowly, making sure her footing was good before reaching up for the next kunai. Her arms were freezing as she climbed past the last few kunai. There was only ten feet to go, but the kunai ended. Now was the hard part.
Holding on as tightly as she could, she grabbed a kunai from her pouch and slammed it as hard as she could into the ice wall. She repeated this over and over, until there was only a foot left to the top, one more kunai. But suddenly below her, Sasuke slipped, jarring Neji who was in front of him. They both fell into Iyasu who was at the end of the makeshift rope as Metsuki braced herself for the violent jerk that came moments later when the rope went taught.
The combined weight of the three ninja hanging below her was crushing her ribs, she could almost hear them groan with the strain. Her left hand fell away, and soon she was hanging by her right hand alone. Her two broken fingers twisted sickly as their joints dislocated and she almost cried out, instead biting her tongue hard.
She looked below her at the three shinobi dangling there, it didn't help thet the wall curved further up the higher you went. That was the exact moment her wrist decided to snap, the tension being to great for it, and the four began to fall. Not this time.
A large spike of ice suddenly shot out from the wall, narrowly missing Sasuke's stomach. Neji caught onto it as Metsuki landed hard on top of her right arm, further damaging the wrist. She quickly forced the spike into a small platform big enough for them to rest on for a while. The wall was now only six feet up, but Metsuki didn't think she would be able to hold on if they fell again.
"Ow... You guys gotta lose some weight. Look what you did to my poor hand. I am right handed, you know, and that makes me useless," she held up her hand limply and let it dangle before her, poking the numb appendage and letting it fall back into place. It crackled sickly.
"Here," said Iyasu. He gently took her hand,wrapping both of his larger hands around it. The warmth, either from his chakra or just from his body, felt good as Metsuki felt her bones knitting back together. He finished off with two dull cracks as her fingers relocated themselves.
"Thanks, Iyasu," she said. Sighing, she looked up at the wall. If she stood, she wouldn't be able to reach it, although the others would, they were taller than her. Neji stood silently and easily grabbed the edge, lifting himself up. He was followed by Sasuke and then by Iyasu. Metsuki was last.
She reached up with her healed right hand as Neji grabbed it, the warmth seeping into her again. Why is everybody else so warm, but here I am freezin' my ass off? She dug her feet into the wall as the ice platform below her vanished, finally pulling herself up onto the wall and looking upon the Hidden Snow properly.
The buildings arched towards the middle in an almost artistic formation as snow fell over it, turning it completely white and reigning silence across the rooftops. It was beautiful. Metsuki was shaking uncontrollably by now, as the sun had already set and the moon glinted sharply off the snow, drilling into her mind.
Still in silence, the four untied their cloaks, shaking them back into their original shape and putting them on. Metsuki shivvered even more, wondering if she should have just left the cloak off as it was covered in a thin layer of ice. She brushed against Sasuke, once again noticing that his body was radiating heat, unlike hers.
The four fell back into the shadows against the side of a building as they caught their breath properly.
"Why am i so cold? You guys are all warm, but I'm freezin' my ass off!" she hissed. Iyasu turned, and grinned.
"You've lost too much blood from the previous attack, and from that ambush. It would also help if you weren't so skinny," he said, still grinning. Neji removed his cloak and held it out to her, white eyes boring into hers.
"Here, I'm not cold," he said. She took it gratefully as an image flashed into her mind. She had been sitting with the red-haired boy in the middle of winter as they trained. It had started snowing, and the temperature had dropped. Although she could stop the snow, she had no control over the temperature. The red-haired boy had givin her his jacket to wear as they trained. It was almost exactly the same, except instead of pupiless white eyes staring out at her, they had been emerald green. She smiled.
"Once we arrive at the main building, I want Metsuki to enter alone, as she is the quietest of us all. Sasuke and Iyasu will watch over her. I will stand guard outside and use my Byakuugan to keep watch. Metsuki, you will locate the scrolls as quickly as possible and deliver them back to us one at a time. They might be in different places, so we could be moving around alot. Alright?"
"Hai," said the three other shinobi. They stood, back in the same formation with Neji leading followed by Sasuke, then Metsuki and then by Iyasu. They danced lightly across the rooftops, making sure to land in Neji's footsteps, which were infrequent to begin with, and leaving a trail in which it appeared there was only one ninja stealing through the night.
There were no lights on in any of the houses that they passed, save one or two, and the building at the center of the village came up quickly. The four quickly dashed around to the right side of the structure, where they would begin searchin the eight points which they had determined the most likely for the Snow-nin to conceal the scrolls. Metsuki dropped into the first courtyard as the figures of Iyasu and Sasuke vanished into the shadows, leaving her alone.
She approached the first location, a small, underground shrine, and descended the icy steps. She heard voices speaking in whispers to eachother from behind the door, two adult voices, male, most likely jounin guards. She sighed inwardly, peeking through a crack into the dimly lit room and spotting exactly what she had predicted. The Snow Jounin wore the same type of flak jacked as ones from the Leaf, but they were completely white. They also wore completely white outfits, perhaps for camouflage. If I kill them, the alram might be raised if the bodies are found. I should do this quickly and silently, and I should hide the bodies.
Metsuki furrowed her eyebrows as the air surrounding the two ninja vanished, leaving them with nothing, not even the ability to cry out or perform a jutsu. She curled the air below their bodies as they fell, making no sound at all, before waiting a moment to make sure there were no others. She stepped forward.
As she approached the centerpeice of the shrine, she noticed something else that Neji had told her to watch for. It was not the small lever sticking out from the side of a statue, but the small, hair-like threads passing around it almost invisible against the stone. She carefully manipulated her hand past them and flicked the lever down.
The centerpeice silently moved, it's lower half opening into a crawl space which she entered. She almost gasped when she saw what lay hidden inside.
Although there was only about a little more than two feet of crawlspace from floor to ceiling, the far wall was stacked with scrolls, each brightly coloured and intricately decorated. From each scroll, upon closer examination, hung a tag that said what it contained. Although this was not part of their mission, it had been exactly what Metsuki had been looking for, but even she had not expected there to be this many, maybe two or three tops. They were summon scrolls.
She crawled towards the stack, holding out her hand and reading each of the labels, she was going to take three, one for each of the other members on her team.
She found the perfect one for Iyasu first, the scroll for the wolf summon Katsugan, a large white wolf with incredible strength and speed. The outside of the scroll depicted the ninetails, the demon fox, being beaten down by the wolf. She unrolled it and found a bit of information on the summon, although the part meant to be signed was blank.
The God of Wolves, Katsugan (meaning peircing eyes), is a pwerful demon with incredible powers of speed and strength. It is said that he would have most likely beaten the demon fox, Kyuubi, in a fight, although it would have been close. Although the summon is only the sixe of a large wolf, he has incredible strength and unwavering loyalty.
She rolled up the scroll, tucking it inside of her cloak, realizing she was still wearing Neji's. She moved down the line. The next one she found was perfect for Sasuke, it was not a single summon, but a group of summons. They were the three dragonflies, two brothers of air and water and the father of them, a large red dragonfly of the fire element. The outside of the scroll was painted with red and orange swirls and one and was blue and the other was yellow. This scroll was also blank, and the information at the top was as short as the last.
Akatonbo, the giant red dragonfly, and his two powerful sons, Shiden of the air, as fast as lightning, and Anrui of the water, with powerful jutsus. Akatonbo is a giant, red dragonfly of the fire element and although he is rebellious, he keeps his word and is fairly loyal. He will protect his master with everything, making him a powerful ally.
After tucking away that scroll as well, she rummaged through the pile quickly, looking for one type in particular, a type of bird summon. She thought it suited him, and he seemed to like birds as he had chosen the bird Anbu mask.
She finally found one, painted white and designed in black feathers. The Eagle Brothers, Kazaashi and Shuurei. She scanned the blank scroll, before coming across an even smaller information paragraph.
The giant Eagle Brothers, with wingspans of up to thirty-five feet or more. The white Kazaashi for speed and intelligence, and the black Shuurei for grace and power, along with instinct, making a powerful team if summoned together.
She smiled, quickly rolling up the scroll and stepping out. But as she prepared to step back out, she noticed a small, black string in the corner. She moved over to it and gently pulled it, causing the frozen dirt to crumble away and revealing a medium-large scroll in the ground. She pulled this out and examined it. On the edge ir read, Forbidden Jutsu Scroll number Three. She gripped it tightly before leaving, heading past the two bodies and above ground.
She quickly headed to the rooftops, locating Sasuke first and handing him the scroll, he nodded and whispered, "Neji says to try points B, C and E next, he says that he can see scrolls inside of those rooms, all three."
Metsuki nodded in silence and headed to point B, the next point and the closest to her current position. There was another shrine, another crawlspace, another string and another scroll here as well, along with a wall of stacked gold blocks. She only had one guard to kill this time, and when she finished, she gave the scroll to Sasuke, tossing him a peice of gold and grinning before vanishing, off to the next two points.
These were the same, except for one contained historical documents in the crawlspace and the othe contained three rusted samurai armour laying in boxes against the wall. This was getting too easy, she almost laughed.
"That's it? That's an A ranked mission?" asked Metsuki. "Hey, Where's Mr. Leader?"
"He's keeping watch on the roof over-" Sasuke was cut off as Neji ran towards them, panting and bleeding from several small wounds.
"They've found us! There are too many, we'll have to run!"
There was no questioning him as over fifty white ninja, mostly jounins, jumped towards them weilding feircome-looking weapons. The four chuunin took off in a hurry, back the way they had come. The way was blocked, they were suroounded.
Metsuki stepped forward and threw up her arms, taking with them a somewhat large amount of snow. The snow melted together into long, pointed spears of ice which she sent at the jounin in front of them, the ones blocking the path. It was cleared and stained with blood in a matter of seconds, ripping around twenty bodies to shreds instantly, and the group took off.
She shot a look behind her, sending up spikes of ice from the ground and stopping their pursuers in mid-dash, perhaps even killing a few more. The group made it to the edge of the wall, before stopping, it was a over a fifty foot drop here. The jounins started appearing behind them again.
"Trust me, just jump! I'll take care of it!" The three others braced themselves and did as told, hurtling down in a sickening freefall before landing on a large, black fur covered surface. It was a giant bat.
"Wait there, Akumu!" came Metsuki's voice from above. There was a sudden explosion as the entire wall exploded into a blazing tornado of flame, which was put out only after a thousand small ice needles followed up the attack. But it wasn't over, as another astronomical explosion shook the air. The bat rested on the ground as if nothing were happening, looking pissed off that it had been summoned in this frozen wastleand.
Metsuki flew off the wall with the last explosion, her cloak billowing in the firey night as she clutched Neji's in her left hand. She fell headfirst towards the bat, causing the ninja below to think her unconcious, until her arms came out like a professional diver and she flipped upright landing in a crouch on the bat's head. Her body was badly singed and her skin had black marks on it, although her hair seemed untouched.
"Fly, now, Akumu! Hurry!" She grabbed the reins of the giant black bat as they rose into the air.
"Make sure that they don't get a clear shot on my summon, otherwise our ticket out of here is dead," she said as she expertly controlled the bat.
Sasuke ran up to the edge of the bat's back and yelled, "Katon Ryuuku no Jutsu!" A gigantic stream of fire, as large as the explosions caused by Metsuki, flew from Sasuke's mouth, taking quite a few of the closer Jounins down. The bat was clear.
"Fly high, Akumu."
The bat lifted it's huge wings above it's finely furred head and beat down hard, throwing them another twenty feet into the air, and continuing until the Hidden Snow was completely lost in the clouds. The bat's soaring resumed at a laid-back pace. Iyasu moved over to Neji to tend to his wounds, healing them in a matter of seconds. Neji was about to say something to Metsuki, but he was cut off.
"We are heading straight to the Hidden Stream right away, that should only take a few hours, so we should be there by sunrise."
"Sunrise? But it took us almost a week to get here. And what about our camp?" asked Neji.
"If we land now, we will be caught, so it's too risky to get our stuff. And I could easily get us there by sunrise, I'll just need to push my body a little."
"Metsuki! Don't do that, you've lost enough blood, you'll kill yourself," warned Iyasu, standing up.
"Shut the hell up and hold on tight, Iyasu. It's gonna be a hell of a flight to the Hidden Stream."
Metsuki whispered something to the large black bat, Akumu, and slumped over, still concious, but no longer in control. She had put hersulf into the summon's body and was now controlling th bat.
She felt her senses sharpen incredibly as the world painted itself in black and white in her mind. Every sound flared to life as an image in the back of her mind as she manipulated her echolocation. She flexed her long wings before straining her body to it's limit, pushing past the pain and forcing her new body to move as fast as it would allow. The world zoomed past her unbelievebly fast as she pushed herself alog with a strong wind, and as the sun began to rise, she looked upon vast grassy fields. In the distance she saw the Hidden Stream, nestled in the center of a valley and surrounded by large dark boulders that cat elongated shadows in the morning light.
She detatched herself from her summons body, jerking back to life in her own. She had a horrible headache, which was unnatural since her bloodline was still active. That was a bad sign for the side effects to be showing up already.
She steered the bat lower and lower in tight circles above the village, landing close to one of the walls and standing. Iyasu stood as well, receiving a scroll from Sasuke in silence. He shook hands with Sasuke and Neji before moving towards Metsuki.
"Here, I got one for you. It's a summoning contract, you need a summon, they're useful. I got you the Wolf God, Katsugan. Take it," she said, loud enough for the others to hear in awe of such a great gift. Then, to their suprise, Iyasu thanked her by brushing his lips across her cheek, as she had abandoned he mask awhile ago. Neji felt his cheeks burn.
"Bye," said Iyasu. He vanished in a puff of smoke and Metsuki turned to the other two, noticing Neji blushing but not saying anything. She also noticed both of their stunned faces. She laughed quietly.
"Don't worry, I got you guys one as well. For Sasuke, I got the three dragonflies, Akatonbo of fire, and his sons, Anrui of the water and Shiden of the air
"And for Neji, which took me a long time to find, I got the Eagle Brothers Kazaashi and Shuurei, very large and powerful birds."
She tossed them their respective scrolls and they caught them in awe. They thanked her, still not beleiving what they had received.
"We'll be back at Konoha in less than an hour. I feel a bad attack coming."
She jerked the reins of her bat summon and lifted off, passing over the fields and then the forests until Konoha was in sight. Neji noticed by now that she had broken out in a cold sweat and was breathing heavily.
"What's happening, I thought you only got attacks after you stopped using your bloodline. What's wrong?" he asked worriedly.
"I've never had an attack this bad, Neji," she said seriously. "I really don't know what will happen to me. If something does happen, please replace my bandana, otherwise my body will count that as still using my bloodline." HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO ME!? I CAN"T BREATHE!
The bat swung over Konoha, over the Hokage's quarter, vanishing as it dropped them over the roof. The three ninja landed expetly in crouches in a neat row with Neji in the middle. Suddenly, Metsuki began coughing.
"Neji," she rasped as blood began to leak from her mouth. "Take me to the Hokage."
She began to cough uncontrollably as the attack hit her, or more exploded from her body. Blood gushed from her nose and mouth, even causing red tears to leak from her eyes. Her left ear began to tricle slowly as she collapsed. Neji and Sasuke were ther in seconds, Neji cradling her body until she stopped coughing.
He lifted her gently and carried her quickly off the roof, jumping from the edge and absorbing the shock as best he could with his knees. Sasuke ran in front of him, pushing the doors open. When they got in, they found two ninja standing at the door of the Hokage's office. Sasuke pushed past them and began to bang on the door, the Anbu mask hanging over his shoulders bouncing up and down on his cloak with every strike.
Just then, Metsuki coughed up another torrent of blood, covering Neji's front ans staining the wooden floor. The two ninja at the door called out to the Godaime that it was an emergency and the door opened, revealing Tsunade with sleepy eyes. They snapped open though, when she saw that the three chuunin had returned so early, she had expected them to take almost a month to complete the mission.
But her eyes really opened wide as she saw Metsuki dripping blood which was leaking from every opening on her head now, staining her face and Anbu cloak red. Neji was now completely covered in her blood. Tsunade stood in shock for a moment, registering the state of the kunoichi. Her lips were turning blue, her eyelids were twitching in pain, her heartbeat was weak and irregular, as was her breathing, and... her breathing stopped?
Tsunade dashed forward without words, sweeping the female ninja away from Neji and laying her on the floor, trying to bring back her breathing. She ripped off the cloak, revealing her arms and neck. They were covered in black marks, clouds, her seal had spread and now was reaching up her body. She barked instructions to the four ninja, telling them to get the medical-nins before she jolted Metsuki's body, shoking her respiritory system back to work. A moment later, more than a dozen medical-nin filled the room, swarming around the chuunin as Tsunade barked orders at them, commanding Neji and the two jounin to leave. Sasuke, however, remained as Tsunade said he was needed.
Neji left slowly, wondering if Metsuki would live through this. He stepped into the summer morning, or now autumn seeing as how they had been gone for almost two weeks. Looking up, he was shocked to see what had happened to the sun. Instead of it's usual happy glow, it burned blood red, seeming to drip in the colour of blood.