Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto in any way and make no claim on its copyright or any characters from the series. Original characters are my own property.
Author's Notes: Well, here's an action sequence, in case anyone's been waiting. I wouldn't get your hopes up for more too soon, but the story will probably have a heavy action component (wait till Chul'To shows up again). Oh, also, another new character in this segment. For some reason there's going to be a bunch of new characters introduced pretty rapid fire here, but I don't think the overall cast will be that large.
Thanks to anyone who has commented, and hopes for more!
Other Gifts Continues
Suzumebachi stood staring at the scroll in her hands for a long moment, trying to grasp the impossibility of it simply falling into her hands once again. The scroll's presence fit the events of the past two days together smoothly. The tattoo on her forehead clearly invoked some potent technique described within; one that gave her some power in the strange form of summoning the Tushcikage had used to bring forth Chul'To. That much she understood, but where had the scroll come from? The old man had died young, at the height of his abilities, only in his thirties, and Suzumebachi's parents had only had children later in life, this scroll had not been seen in sixty years. Its reappearance now, from a source completely unknown, shocked her to the core, even as the implications it offered slowly spread through her mind, shining new possibilities with every passing moment.
The Tsuchikage allowed the wasp ninja some time to absorb the situation, standing motionless, considering the events of the morning so far, planning ahead with his cunningly intellect, examining many possibilities. He was unmoving as he thought, and Suzumebachi was almost able to ignore the powerful old man, but then his body lurched backward a step in surprise, and she snapped to alertness, wondering what had happened.
A cold edge of steel touched her neck.
Hot breath, laden with strange liquid scents, passed over her right ear. Suzumebachi's body went completely tense, her muscles coiling with energy, ready to react at the slightest opportunity. She could not believe an opponent had so simply gotten behind her without her sensing it; her senses were acute, especially to the small and concealed. Moreover, whomever her assailant was the Tuschikage had not noticed the presence in time to warn her. Frigid tendrils of fear rushed through her with that realization, for however much age might have dulled the old man's senses it still took unbelievable skill to hide one's presence from a Kage on an open field.
"So this is the one you chose to bestow my gift on old man?" the voice that spoke from behind Suzumebachi's face was slick, slurred, and it seemed as if the words spun about an unnecessarily mobile tongue as they escaped the prison of the mouth, a frightful voice, and one not filled with anything familiar. "How very generous of you…"
The Tsuchikage stood straight, looking past Suzumebachi to the face that must be behind her own. "She is of the proper family, and has an appropriately sturdy mindset, it is her right, and the best chance," he spoke firmly, assured.
Suzumebachi wondered at the meaning of those cryptic words, but only for a moment, for the response was far more frightful.
"So you say, old man," there was no respect there, the young ninja could not believe anyone could speak to the Tsuchikage that way, much less get away with the cruel tone. "You say so, but I'll decide for myself whether this one has the worth."
"Will you?" the aged ninja master lifted an eyebrow slowly, his expression thoughtful.
"Yes!" the unseen other barked. His voice was strident, harsh, and absolutely confident, holding assurance greater than the Tsuchikage's, something Suzumebachi had not believed possible. "Right now!"
The blade vanished from the edge of her skin suddenly, but it was followed by a frightful declaration. "Defend yourself girl! Or perish!"
There was no additional warning, and the voice's strange qualities seemed to belie location, so Suzumebachi had no idea where the attack was coming from. With no other options she dashed forward, past the Tsuchikage's immobile form, believing her enemy could not possibly be in front of her.
"Kanrakukou no jutsu!" the words came from below her, and the ground split open under Suzumebachi's feet. She tried to jump, but everything in a wide radius crumbled and the move had been timed with both her feet off the ground, sending her tumbling down into a dark pit. She twisted as she fell, but the ground sealed itself above her, leaving her to fall in absolute darkness.
There was nothing to be done now, except to fall safely. The darkness was disorienting, but Suzumebachi's experience with insects had taught her to correctly orient toward the ground, so she struck feet first. Bending her knees she deliberately tumbled forward with the landing, rolling to the ground and then sideways, spinning in a full circle three times before striking a stone wall. It still hurt, but no bones were broken.
Blind now, and with no time to accept input from the other senses, Suzumebachi forced herself upright and drew a kunai from its usual place in her skirt, bringing it up before her in her right hand.
"So you are not dead yet," the frightful susurrus voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. "Let's see how long that lasts."
There was little time to plan, and Suzumebachi's mind was well into panic, trying to reason out the nature of her enemy and the unbelievable situation she was suddenly entrapped within. A barely noticeable whirling noise passed through the air in front of her, and she reacted.
Too late, the kunai struck the shuriken, but far to close to her body, and the weapon was not spinning parallel to the floor as usual, but perpendicular to it, so her strike only sent the metal star flying up into her ribcage.
Burning fiery pain blossomed from the points of metal digging into her flesh, but it aided her, not defeated her. Her thick clothes, designed to provide a buffer space against her body for the placement of insect allies, absorbed much of the light weapon's impact, and the pain brought her back to her senses.
Suzumebachi dropped to the ground, crawling forward on both legs and her left arm, kunai extended before her. Only two steps, and it struck and outcropping of stone. She reached out with her left hand and pulled herself against it, moving her hand to discover a thick spire, wide enough to shield the body. Scrambling with desperate vigor she put her back to that rock, and moved slowly around it, continuously, to hopefully confuse her opponent. The situation was utterly desperate, and she must buy a few moments to think.
It was possible that this was only some strange kind of test, arranged by the Tsuchikage or some other, but Suzumebachi realized she dared not bet on that, she could not take such a risk, she would have to fight with everything she possessed. Assessing her situation, she possessed very little at the moment. Her insects were sealed far away from her, and she could not see her opponent. Those few earth jutsus she knew would be too dangerous to use in an unknown cavern like this, she could easily kill herself. It left little beyond taijutsu to fight a mysterious and unknowable opponent. She was in all probability dead.
Yet Suzumebachi gripped her kunai tightly, and grasped a shuriken in her left hand, holding it between index and middle fingers. She was not going to give in; she would not plead for mercy. She would make her enemy work to kill her.
Only a moment after reaching such a final decision it almost came to make no difference.
The tiny difference in temperature, the universally chill air of the cavern compared against the slightly warmer heat of steel in the sunlight for a few minutes was all she had to go upon, the only sign when the blade came in toward her throat from the right.
She lashed out with the kunai to block, jamming the weapon between her neck and the blade, and struck forward, and to her sides, only to find nothing.
Steel slid against steel, and pricked her skin, drawing blood. Suzumebachi recognized that her opponent's blade was not straight, but could be made to curve around her kunai. She jerked it forward to buy a moment, but there was no more time, she had to drive her opponent back or have her throat cut, pierced like a wasp-killed spider.
That image provided her the inspiration she needed, and her left arm lashed out upward, the sharp shuriken points projecting above her hand.
A great weight fell upon her, driving her to the stone floor, hard, striking her knees with an audible crack. Elbows bit into her sides, and a flurry of motion moved against her. Her enemy had not tried to dodge, but had simply fallen upon her!
Suzumebachi jerked and thrashed, bringing her kunai and shuriken in every direction, but she could get no leverage with her arms, even as she felt her enemy strike her. A steel edge slashed across her leg, opening a hot flow of blood there. A moment later and a fist struck hard into her left side, smashing bruising her ribs and driving air from her lungs even as her kunai struck something hard and was wrenched from her hand.
The maddening closeness of the fight was immediate and awful. Ninja combat was fluid, filled with motion, avoidance, and counterstrikes, not this mad brawling. This close all her taijutsu maneuvers were useless, there was only scratching claws, striking fury all about her as she tried desperately to ward off the blows of something that handled her completely. When the second gash cut into her cheek, prevented from taking her throat only by a last second jerk of the head, Suzumebachi knew it was only a matter of time until she was killed. No seals, no insects, no techniques, nothing could save her, she might channel chakra to increase her strength somewhere, but always was it blocked by greater strength in the same place, while striking elsewhere at the same moment. Death was slowly taking her apart piece by piece.
At that moment she might have given up. It would not have been hard, or unreasonable. There was no way she should win a fight like this, with all her skills compromised, it was an impossible expectation, a miracle she had survived so long as she had. If she was killed here no one would claim she was incompetent, just outclassed and unlucky, a reasonable death for a ninja.
It was tempting to accept that death. There were worse ways for a ninja to be remembered than as killed by a superior opponent in straightforward combat. Indeed, it was tempting, not a bad way for Kamizuru Suzumebachi, disgraced, called a coward by all, all but disinherited child of a dying clan, to fall, an honorable place on the rolls of Iwa's dead awaited her then, and no one would say she was a coward.
Then she remembered the scroll.
Above it waited for her, the repository of all her hopes for so long, the instrument of her salvation, and that of all her clan as well. Suzumebachi was sure of it, recalled even as she fended off a knee to the stomach with her leg, suffering yet another painful gash in the process, the powerful form of Chul'To, the Vesp's compact and lethal body. The scroll could give her the power she desired, the power to find a useful purpose, the one chance at heroism to wipe away her shame. The Tsuhcikage had as much as said it himself.
"I won't die like this!" Suzumebachi shouted, bringing her head forward, pouring energy into all parts of her body. "Not like this!"
Her forehead struck something hard, and she lashed her left arm about wildly, feeling the shuriken's sharp edge bite against something solid, knowing she had connected to something of meaning she put all her strength and energy behind that arm, snapping forward.
The arm went forward, but Suzumebachi's body spun back, kicked hard along the rough stone beneath. Pieces of crystal cut and tore at her as she rolled, driving the breath from her lungs, and then everything changed again.
A sudden sensation of falling overcame her for a single instant, the complete suspension of gravity. Then all went bitterly cold, chill as ice, and slick. Her eyes, closed in panic, snapped open. Darkness remained, but a stinging pain burned her eyes, wet. She was submerged.
It was terrifying, to be submerged underwater in the dark, feeling blood leak out from her scratches, a terror multiplied a thousand fold when an iron grip enveloped the top of her head.
Primeval fears blasted through Suzumebachi's mind, the fear of drowning here in the dark. Her lungs, already bereft of air, screamed at her, demanding to the mouth to open, calling the frigid, mineralized water into her lungs. Resistance against that urge could not last, and when it failed death was certain.
Strength born of panic surged in her, and arms lashed out above her, but though she struck the arm holding her the water worked against her strength, and the slender points of her shuriken could not cut into the thick, tough fabric covering the limb to reach vulnerable tissue. The arm held her without so much as budging.
Legs thrashed in desperation, and they scraped flesh raw against sharp edged stone behind her knees. Blood flowed hot around her legs, but the feel of that stone, blissfully solid in the mad dark water, gave her one last idea.
Suzumebachi reached up to grab the arm holding her down, gripping with both hands in a dead-man's grip. A sharp blade bit into her hand a moment later, but she ignored it, her last measure, all her dwindling reserves invoked, engaged. All her chakra was shunted to her legs, and she pushed off against those rocks behind her hard enough to rip through her sandals and slash her feet, throwing her whole body forward, applying maximum leverage.
A splash resonated through the water, confirming success.
Swiftly Suzumebachi kicked and broke the surface, grasping at the ledge of stone and pulling herself from the water, trying to flee once more.
She had levered herself halfway from the water when a wet, cold hand closed on her own and she felt the sharp steel edge envelop her throat completely.
"Enough," the sliding voice was laden with amusement. "You are strong enough to keep it I think, so you do not die today." The blade pulled away from her throat and strong arms grasped her shoulders and pulled her from the water.
Still confused, and flooded with the brutal combat, Suzumebachi could only gasp, and try to staunch some of her wounds. Touching those cuts, she found that they were hardly bleeding at all, and though they strong terribly, seemed not at all deep. "Wha…" it was all her muddled mind could manage.
"The minerals in that water staunch bleeding and sterilize wounds," the answer came, again filled with sly amusement. "Besides, I did not cut you deep, though I might have."
"What, but surely…" Suzumebachi could not believe her opponent had been holding back.
"You have a strong instinct little girl," the voice chuckled, a frightful tone sending shivers cascading though Suzumebachi. "But no one beats Harvestman in his realm, no one," the statement was utterly emphatic.
"Harvestman?" she questioned, wondering at the meaning behind such a strange title.
"Hmm…I think I will give you something to think about," the frightful laugh, far from anything Suzumebachi had ever heard before from a human throat, came once more. "You seem to need a bit of rest before going up."
Light blossomed about Suzumebachi, stinging her eyes for a moment. The light was not strong, a pale green color, and when her eyes could see again after a moment she saw it came from a pale green crystal, lying on the ground in front of her. The light illuminated a bit of the cavern, a cold stone space with a deep, narrow pool of utterly clear water behind her, filled with great thick columns of stone in an otherwise tall and narrow chamber. It was oddly awe-inspiring, but terribly foreign and frightful at the same time.
The appearance of her antagonist was far more shocking. He was a man, sitting calmly with his legs crossed before him, or at least she thought he was a man. The profile certainly belonged to a human, but the entire body was covered in thick, supple fabrics died completely black. Various pieces of equipment clung to that fabric, hooked in place by tight chords winding across the body to pass near the hands or mouth. The face was the worst, it was painted entirely black, and goggles tinted the same colorless darkness covered the eyes. Worst of all was the mouth, for Suzumebachi saw it was surrounded by a fleshy thing shaped perhaps like a starfish, legs wrapping down to the back of the jawbone and up over the ears, with one covering the nostrils. A thin membranous extension held the center, covering up the man's mouth. Black as well the thing was organic and perhaps even alive. It disgusted her utterly.
Perhaps amused at the look on her face the man took the knife he held in his right hand, a strange blade bent forward in the middle she vaguely recognized as being called a kukri, and placed it between his teeth. The starfish thing bonded to the edges of it for a moment before he took it back out again.
Suzumebachi retched dryly onto the stone floor, grateful she had forgotten to eat breakfast.
Harvestmen laughed uproariously. "You find my breather revolting? Ha! There's no place for such weaknesses down here. Best you learn to overcome that."
She fixed the strange man with the best stare she could, but her anger was wasted. Instead, recovering herself a little, Suzumebachi decided to question him. "Why did you attack me?"
"To see if you had the strength to take my gift, that's all," his voice was no longer amused, but still had that strange, twisting nature.
"What gift?" Suzumebachi was in no mood for obliqueness, and felt no need to bother with politeness to the man who had almost killed her. She no longer even cared about possibly angering him to attack again; she wanted something for her pain.
"The scroll," the answer was swift, and when Suzumebachi started to question he added. "Where think it came from? I found it, down below, far from here. No such things do I need, but I won't let one who hasn't the strength to live have it."
"The strength to live?"
"It takes strength to survive. You know this, a little at least," he told her, standing slowly. "Savage strength by your standards, but you need it." Harvestman reached out and picked up his rock. "I don't like light," he muttered. "Come girl, grab the column," roughly he lifted Suzumebachi to her feet with his gloved hands, hard, studded gloves and tough leather that scraped her skin. "Now climb," he ordered.
Suzumebachi grabbed a hold of the stone surface, only to discover it was cold and slick. Then the light went out completely. Her breath ran fast, but she slowed it, taking deliberate breaths and tightening her grip on the stone. Slowly she pulled herself up a step. It was bitterly hard, for her muscles arched from cuts, bruises, and blows, and chakra was no help on the slick, irregular surface, but she could move, gradually.
"When you reach the top strike the ceiling with all you might and you will find your realm again girl," Harvestman's voice echoed from below her. "Not soon, no, but again, we will meet again, best for you to be stronger."
"Wait!" Suzumebachi called out, not wanting to be alone in the darkness, thinking even the odd, freakish presence of Harvestman to be a small comfort, but he was gone instantly, leaving no sound. In that moment she sensed some aspect of his mastery of this underground place.
Left with no other options, the wasp ninja climbed, though her hands grew cold and numb from the moisture slowly dribbling down the surface of the column, and her sense of time and orientation faded, until all that occurred was the slow motion upward of one limb at a time. Upward, always she went upward, in the disorienting darkness.
Eventually her hair brushed something solid, and Suzumebachi reached out to feel solid stone above her. Recalling now Harvestman's command she pulled her arm back, gathered chakra, and struck the surface.
It cracked before her, light flooding in to burn her wide eyes. Air rushed up from behind her, propelling her through the thin gap, and out onto a soft surface her body remembering blissfully as grass.
A shadow moved over her. Blinking furiously, Suzumebachi turned her head to glimpse the graven image of the Tsuchikage staring down at her, and behind him a shinobi in the white coat of a medic.
"You live, good," The Tsuchikage muttered. He placed a hand on her shoulder, forming a single seal. "For now, sleep."
- Kanrakukou means "Sinkhole."