Chapter Nine
Two days of determined movement had passed since the attack, coupled with two nights of tense security. As the final projected day of travel neared, the members of Team TAK were both relieved and wary; relieved that it was almost over, one way or another, and wary of the attack that would no doubt happen today.
As the trio of caravans were lined up for the last leg of their mission, Aoba glanced to the north and their end goal. At the rate they had been going, they would reach the Waterfall border and rendezvous with one of their teams between late afternoon and evening. Which meant they had about an eight-hour window of attack, starting now.
As preparation for the inevitable attack, Tomoko had already summoned Yama, who sat next to the driver of the front caravan. Aoba would join the second, one of his summoned summon crows perched on his shoulder and ready to immediately summon a murder of its fellows without further preperation. Aoba was considering where to place his teammates for maximum defensive options when Tomoko wandered up.
"Isn't it weird that Ken's the only one here without a summon?" she asked quietly, one eye on Ken himself as he checked and rechecked the seal formulae that would protect the caravans. "Maybe we should help him look into that when the mission is over and done with." Aoba grunted in assent. Both of them were very much aware of how formidable a summons could be, both in and out of combat.
The sound of surprised yelling caught their attention and they turned to find the walls of the caravans smoking as the seal matrices glowed white. Ken was waving away the light smoke and explaining something to Itsuki and Sana.
"What on earth are you doing?" Aoba asked as he approached.
"Engraving," Ken explained. "It's an Uzumaki secret sealing application. This permanently affixes the seals to a surface and resists any efforts to remove it short of utter destruction of the vessel. And since a part of these seals are to reinforce the wood to steel-like hardness, that's not likely. It's basically the same thing I did to the seals on your shoulders."
Aoba and Tomoko glanced at each other as they considered the implications of such a thing … and independently wondered if there was anything this lost clan couldn't do with seals.
"Are you saying you've made our caravans impregnable?" Itsuki asked with wide eyes.
"For all intents and purposes, yes. At least for today and maybe a few more days after. The seals still require chakra to function, and a lot of it. I've been adding to their reserves every night since we started, so they should be able to resist anything that comes at them today. But without ninja to replenish them, they'll just be decorative when the stored chakra runs out."
"Could we pay another shinobi from our village to replenish them?" Sana asked.
Ken grimaced. "In theory. But it would take a lot of chakra to keep them going through any number of ambushes, and a mission like that would not be cheap." He turned to them with a fierce look in his eyes. "And remember what we agreed upon before I applied these."
Ken had made a secondary agreement with the Aokis before he'd placed these seals. In return for utilizing secret clan techniques, they were to never speak of it to anyone else, much less allow anyone to try and study it. No sealing formula was beyond reverse engineering, and he would be damned if anyone got their hands on his family's secrets because of these two. He'd made that abundantly clear to them, with implied threats that had chilled their bones. Not his proudest moment, but it worked.
"We understand," Sana said.
"Then I suggest we get moving," Aoba intervened. "We're burning daylight as it is."
"An excellent suggestion, Mister Yamashiro," Itsuki agreed. He clapped for attention and gave the order to get moving. Within ten minutes, they were eating up the miles toward the border. And through it all, Aoba resisted the urge to fidget. His intuition was screaming at him that they were being watched.
Today was the day they would have to truly fight.
Naruto shouted a wordless battle cry as he hammered away at a training dummy Ken had made for him, one of three. This, the first, was basically a post with a cushion of straw around it for practicing his katas. Normally Ken or one of his shadow clones would be here to correct any problems with his forms, but for now he was instructed to practice what he knew.
The second in line was similar to the first, but was etched with seals that made it sway randomly, simulating a dodging opponent. This forced Naruto to actively compensate and hone his "aggressive" reflexes.
The third in line was equipped with arms and seals that made them swing at him as he practiced on it. He was meant to block these attacks even as he attacked it, thus honing his "defensive" reactions.
The best part was that when he finished, when he had dealt enough damage to any of them, the stylized head of the dummy would turn red and explode off, remaining attached with a spring. That always made him laugh and further motivated him to do well.
As Naruto continued his physical training, Iruka kept a close eye on him while also writing out his lesson plans for the coming week. It was Saturday, which meant no class. And that in turn meant he could get an idea of Naruto's extracurricular training firsthand. He was impressed with the notes Ken had left behind and was sure to keep to them as much as possible.
After calling an end to Naruto's katas, he motioned for him to begin his daily meditation. Naruto pouted, but didn't complain as he dropped into a folded-leg sitting position and held one fist in the other hand, breathing loudly as he tried to lose himself in the "void of mindless mindfulness."
Iruka joined him, but first cast his gaze northward. He loved spending time with Naruto, really. But he genuinely hoped that the elder Uzumaki would return home soon. For Naruto's sake, if nothing else.
Less than an hour from their destination, it started with the trees.
With the eerie creak of straining wood, the trees on either side of the road began to tilt forward to crush them. As the only one with a grasp of Earth Release, Ken formed the snake seal and slammed his hands to the ground, erecting two long walls along the sides of the road to catch the trees.
As the walls rose and caught them, a blast of Wind Release sheared through the branches sticking over the walls and sent hundreds of pounds of wood flying down upon them. Tomoko reacted quickly with a Fire Dragon Flame Bullet — the twisting construct of condensed flames charring the branches to cinders — while Aoba cleared the other side with a simpler Fire Dragon Bullet.
"Circle the caravans!" Aoba shouted. The drivers were already in motion to do so, abandoning their seats as soon as they could to dart inside. With a hand sign, Ken activated the protective seals and unsealed his black wakizashi, while Tomoko and Aoba revealed their own weapons.
"Tomoko," Aoba prompted.
The chunin focused on moulding sensory chakra and searching out for their opponents. "Three signatures," she reported, "all seperated and converging, along with a few dozen weaker signatures."
"Probably clones of some kind," Aoba noted. And as if on cue, the tops of the earthen walls were filled with copies of three different base figures. The figures all paused in various states of crouching on the walls, simply staring at them.
"I know they're trying to creep us out, but you gotta respect the flair for drama," Tomoko smirked. A few moments later, the crowd of clones leapt and descended upon them.
As they descended, Tomoko laughed — actually laughed — as she flicked her wrist to catch her naginata at the base of its shaft, flowing Fire chakra down the chakra-conductive wires threaded down the length of the shaft to sheathe the blade in crimson flames. With the extra reach of the entire spear, she spun her weapon over the heads of her teammates to slice a total of seven clones out of the air, leaving them to dissolve into mud or water.
Aoba took out a handful of kunai and shuriken, imbuing them with fire chakra as well, and flung them into the throng to dissolve nearly half of the remainders. Ken flowed lightning chakra down his wakizashi, the black coloration fading to standard grey metal and darted into the remainders, a series of quick slashes disrupting the Water Release constructs or utterly destroying the Earth Release clones. Cutting off the lightning flow returned the blade to its characteristic black color.
"Incoming," Tomoko warned, her tone failing to hide her growing excitement.
On the walls where the small battalion of clones had just been, landed the three figures that had clearly created the clones. All three wore sky-blue bandanas with the "tsunami" emblem and international standard issue chunin flak jackets. The two men on one side had their faces covered by hanging cloth and a ceramic half-mask respectively, while the other, a woman, had grey-blue skin and her long hair in a braid.
"Oh boy," Aoba commented, looking at the woman. "That's Oda of Kirigakure. She barely failed their jonin qualification before defecting a few years back."
"I see the Leaf keeps their bingo books up to date," Oda said, unsheathing a nagamaki, a long sword with a handle as long as the blade. "I also know of you, Aoba of the Yamashiro clan. It is a true shame your death will leave your fledgeling clan with no chance at fame." With that, she leapt and swung downward to engage Aoba.
That was apparently the signal to her subordinates. The one with the cloth covering his face leapt at Tomoko with a pair of kama sickles, while the half-masked one charged Ken with a long-bladed kunai.
On Aoba's end, he was having trouble with Oba after she conjured three more water clones. Even with dual kunai blazing with fire chakra and his crow summon distracting one of them, he could only be facing one way at a time. And for every clone he or the crows vanquished, another one rose up to take its place. Not to mention the water clones took little damage from his attacks, their composition counteracting his affinity element. He really needed to look into learning a second element … maybe water, if he survived this.
As he continued to fight, mostly deflecting slashes from Oda's nagamaki, he thought furiously to come up with a counter strategy. If he could figure out which one was the original, he could use his Stone Needles Technique to paralyze her and at least get her out of the fight.
As he was thinking this, one of the clones exploded into water droplets, revealing Yama with his kanabo and a satisfied smirk. "You seem to need some help, Aoba," he commented, swinging to dispel the last clone.
"That would be appreciated," he replied, readying his weapons with newfound vigor. "Come get some!" he shouted, charging with Yama.
Not far from them, Tomoko was having the time of her life against her opponent. His fighting style was wild and unpredictable to fit his weapon, and his skills were on par with her own — which just made it better for her. The opponent, on the other hand, was getting more and more frustrated with the reach of her weapon. Though he had two hand-scythes, he couldn't get close to use their devastating cutting power. Not to mention the wicked flames that would flare up around her blade when she attacked.
"I never understood the appeal of kama as weapons," Tomoko snarked, trying to rile him up. "They have such a weird range unless you're going for hooking maneuvers."
"Let me show you, you bitch!" the enemy-nin shouted, flowing lightning chakra into the blades. He swung at Tomoko, who ducked and jumped back to avoid the attack. Though its cutting power was inferior to Wind Release, Lightning Release still amplified a blade's cutting edge to nasty levels through intense vibrations.
"Bring it, Sparky!" Tomoko challenged, swinging her naginata from the end of the shaft again.
The enemy swung both of his kama together in a two-handed blow to intercept and shear through the naginata, intent on having his lightning-infused sickles destroy the blade of her spear. But rather than shatter her weapon, the blades of his kama were sliced cleanly in half. He had a second to register that before an invisible blade slashed him across the chest.
The nin leapt backward and clutched his wound, a thin but deep and painful cut that grazed his sternum. He looked up as the phenomenon clicked. "You switched flowing Fire chakra for Wind chakra!" he cried.
"And Wind beats Lightning," she agreed, holding up a handful of shuriken in her free hand. With a swing and a Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique, the tsunami nin was flung back against the earthen wall and littered with dozens of stab wounds. He shouted in pain, but the sound was cut short by a swing from a slash from Tomoko that parted his head from his body, leaving him to crumple to the ground.
On the other end of the caravan circle, Ken was engaging the half-masked nin. "You think you can beat me, you moron?!" the nin cried. "You couldn't even fight against those weaklings we sent first! I saw you withdraw and leave the fighting to your friends, and those idiots were bottom-rung!"
He reared back and stabbed forward, only for Ken to step out of the way and grab his wrist, using his momentum and his grip as a fulcrum to spin him and smash his head into the wall. "I'm really glad you guys made me raise this," Ken commented. He pulled the nin's head out of the wall and tossed him away.
"You bastard!" the nin shouted. "I'll kill you! I'll-!" His rant was cut off by seal marks spreading from his wrist and across his body. He collapsed with hardly the ability to breathe.
"That's a paralysis seal," Ken explained. "One that feeds on your chakra to stay active. You'd better hope we wrap this up quickly, or you'll be dead. And struggling will only make it worse."
Before Ken could savor his victory, a massive explosion shook the battleground, hurling everyone asunder. The members of Team TAK each dragged themselves up, their ears ringing and everything sore. And out of the smoke surrounding the caravans stood three different Odas, each one holding a member of the Aoki family by the hair and a kunai to their neck.
"Drop your weapons, or your clients die," the middle one said, her voice deadly calm.
The members of the team glanced at each other in silent communication before reluctantly doing as she said. Aoba released his crows and Tomoko nodded to Yama, who vanished in a puff of smoke. A fourth Oda, obviously the real one, strode from behind them and punched Aoba square in the face before huffing and joining her clones.
"All of you put your hands behind your head," she commanded.
As they did so, all three Leaf ninjas were furiously trying to either figure out their next move, determine how she had gotten past the defensive seals on the caravan, or both. Aoba realized that she must have conjured these clones before the battle began and then engaged him with more, allowing these clones to sneak past him in the heat of battle.
"Now then, I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here," she commented with a sadistic smirk. Tomoko grit her teeth next to her teammates, realizing that Oda had no need to reveal herself to them. She just wanted to flaunt her superior position. No doubt the complex of a missing-nin, having to prove yourself to any and all enemies. Aoba glanced at Tomoko to catch her attention, faintly shaking his head. The message was clear: Calm down. Let it play out for now. She growled and nodded back.
One of the clones forced Kaito to his knees, the young man grimacing at the mud stains on his robe. The real Oda looked down on him and smirked. "I could search the caravans myself, but this is more fun," she said darkly. "I'll ask once before the pain starts." She flicked her nagamaki. "Where's the product?"
'Product?' the Leaf nin thought in unison.
Kaito was sweating bullets, clearly trying to resist his innate fear. "I don't know what you're talking about," he growled. Without a word, Oda slashed him across the face, from the ridge of his brow to the corner of his jaw.
"They say women like scars," she mocked over his screams, "but only clean ones. Thin, faded ones that are so unlike the one that will heal into. And it's just the beginning. Second chance; where is the product?"
"Go to hell!" he shouted, followed by another cut, this one on the other side.
"You're trying my patience, boy," Oda said. "One more try, or your head comes off." She placed her blade over the back of his neck. "Where. Is. The. Product?"
Kaito screwed his face up but remained silent. Oda's eyes flashed and she lifted her sword. She took a deep breath and swung - "My trunk!" Kaito shouted - and her blade stopped a hair's width from his neck. "It's in a secret compartment beneath my trunk," he wept.
Oda chuckled menacingly and looked at the Leaf nin, silently warning them not to move under the watch of her water clones. She entered the family caravan, the one she had broken open to get to them. There was a loud scraping noise and a louder laugh before she returned with a clump of white fibers between her fingers. "Now you know not to mess with our boss, boy," she said cruelly. She looked up at the team. "And you three are poor excuses for ninja."
"Think so?" Ken asked rhetorically. Oda's eyes narrowed at the words … before something burst from the ground and wrapped around each of the water clones holding the family hostage and tried to wrap around her. The real deal was able to avoid it, but the clones were too busy and were trapped.
Oda went pale as a sheet at the sight before her. Three shining, gold-tinted chains as thick as her wrist had wrapped around their arms to keep them from harming the clients, followed by wrapping their bodies. After a few moments, when most of their bodies were covered, the clones dissolved as their connection to their creator was severed.
Oda started trembling. "That can't be-" Her thoughts were cut off by her instincts screaming at her to jump, leaving Tomoko's thrown naginata to barely miss her. She had barely landed on one of the caravans before more chains shot at her and drove her further away to avoid them. As she landed against one of the walls and adhered with chakra, she caught sight of the chains coming from one of the Leaf nin's backs. A redhead's back!
There could be no doubt! SHE HAD TO FLEE! Oda tossed down every smoke bomb she had and ran as fast as she could.
The three ninjas stood there, stunned at her sudden departure. Tomoko expanded her sensory awareness and tracked her as she rapidly approached the edge of her sensory range. "She's running," Tomoko confirmed. "Should we chase her down?" Tomoko asked, clearly hoping for a "yes".
"No," Aoba replied, rubbing his jaw. "She was spooked by something. I don't think she'll be coming back." He glanced at Ken. "You're Transformation broke, by the way," he noted, trying to keep his tone light.
Ken's eyes widened and he peeled off the false bandage to reveal a disjointed seal matrix. It must have happened during that explosion … but that made no sense. The only thing like that that could cancel his seal was … Ken shoved that thought aside and crumpled up the bandage before tossing it to Tomoko. "Burn it," he said shortly, years of keeping his identity a secret rising up and threatening to swallow him in irrational panic. He fell to his knees and tried to meditate, to hold back the tide of negativity.
The Aokis could only tremble in shock as all of this transpired, at least until Tomoko approached and knelt with them, talking with them to try and ease them out of the shock they were in. As she did that, Aoba entered the family caravan to find a secret compartment just as described, filled to the brim with tied, foot-by-foot bales of white plant fibers.
Aoba knelt and plucked some from one of the bales and examined it closely. He sniffed them and pressed his lips together. He took the sample and returned to the clients, holding it up for all to see. "Mister and Madame Aoki, I'm afraid your son is smuggling opium."
As the sun drew near to the horizon, a trio of Taki ninjas, a jonin and two chunin, were growing concerned about their clients. They had been at this outpost on the Fire-Cliffs border for almost two days, helping out where they could but otherwise treating it as a getaway before their mission began. But if the caravan train did not appear before sunset, they were ordered to go out and search for them at the crack of dawn.
So one could hardly imagine their relief when the speck of a distant caravan was spotted on the horizon. As they drew nearer, signs of wear and hardship became more and more apparent. The Leaf ninjas that had handled this leg of the long-term escort mission, which had spanned multiple countries, had clearly had a run-in with some serious obstacles.
As the Taki team approached the caravans when they crossed the border, the elder Aokis providing verification, they were surprised to find their presumable son stripped to his underclothes and being led by a rope from the back of the rear wagon along with another man in the trappings of a prisoner.
"Greetings, honored Aoki family," the jonin leader said. "I take it it wasn't a smooth trip?"
The Aokis remained silent, both looking away in the wake of great shame.
One of the Leaf nin, with spiky hair and sunshades, stepped forward and explained the situation in as much detail as possible. After his explanation, he unsealed a storage scroll to reveal one of the opium bales as proof and then resealed it and tucked the scroll into his flak jacket.
"We will be taking this back to our village as contraband within our borders. Our hospital can refine it into medicine."
The Taki ninjas nodded in agreement and began the official process of signing over custody of escort clients. Signing and stamping proof of arrival, verification of identity, hashing out sentencing for drug smuggling, examining the clients' stock to make sure nothing was taken, and the like. After a solid half hour, the receiving team was satisfied and offered rooms in the outpost for the night.
An offer that was, naturally, appreciated and taken up without hesitation.
The next morning found Team TAK leaping between trees at the fastest they could keep up an extended pace, all of them ready to return home. As they reached midday and approached their break for lunch, Tomoko slowed a bit to draw level with Ken.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"What makes you think something's wrong?" he asked, in the sullen tone that would show anyone that there was obviously something wrong.
"Because you've hardly said a word since we were attacked and you've had your eyebrows scrunched up like you're thinking about something really, really hard."
Ken was silent for a few more moments before answering. "I feel like we're missing something about this mission. Something really dangerous that's going to come out of the woodwork eventually. And what we did here is going to accelerate that."
"What makes you think something like that?" Tomoko asked. True, she'd come to such a conclusion herself based on the idea that these gangs of rabble that could barely qualify as ninja were getting bold enough to try and steal from professionals, but Ken's words had an unusual weight to them.
"Those seals that executed the first batch of rappa-nin," he said. "I didn't get a good look at them, but a seal applied to a living being and set to activate in a specific circumstance is way too advanced for even a chunin. It takes someone with serious skills to do something like that — skills that would earn a deserter an immediate slot in a bingo book." He paused, his lips moving as if he were chewing on his words. "And the only thing that could have gotten past my defensive seals would be a comparable deconstructive seal, one that would be even more advanced."
"What do you think that means?" she asked, unnerved by such a hypothesis.
"I don't know yet," Ken admitted. "But I know without a doubt that we are going to find out. And it will not be pleasant."
As the two continued talking, Aoba was thinking over everything he had overheard. He agreed with Ken that there was something bigger going on in the shadows, and he had far too little information to come up with a working theory.
He could only hope that Konohagakure could intercept whatever would come of this little complication.
"That is all I could see, Master," Oda of the Tsunami finished, her head bowed almost to the ground as a spotlight shone down upon her. She waited patiently for her master, the leader of Tsunami, to offer his verdict on her mission.
"And you are certain it was the Adamantine Sealing Chains?" he asked in a deep voice.
"Without a doubt, sir," she affirmed. "No genjutsu could have destroyed my clones like that, by cutting off their chakra entirely. And the very sight of it was … unmistakable."
After a few moments, her leader bid her to rise and stand before him. She did so and stood firm under his gaze. "Oda of the Tsunami, I officially name you my second," he said. Oda gasped, then took back her composure.
"You honor me, sir," she said.
The leader smiled briefly before leaning forward in thought. "You have done well in bringing me this news. Such a revelation raises questions and … possibilities."
"And risks?" Oda asked.
"Oh, without a doubt. But no opportunity worth taking is void of risk." He paused for a few moments before tossing her a new bandana with golden trim, a symbol of her position within the gang. "For now, we operate as we have. You are dismissed."
Oda bowed again, from the waist, and left.
As the door clicked shut, the leader stood and walked to the single circular window of his penthouse, looking down over the small town that was his territory. He considered the information he had like the layout of a chess board, carefully considering possible moves and counters. After some time of this, he decided to leave it be. He would wait, for now, and see how the game would unfold until it brought this prospect to him.
And it would soon enough. After all, he knew better than anyone the determination and curiosity of the Uzumaki.
Three by three, chapter nine is here! Lots of action in this one, too; I hope you all liked it!
*Engraving is an original skill for sealing for the sake of this work. It sears the seal into whatever surface is on it for more permanence.
*Tomoko's comment about kama - hand scythes - being impractical is a bit of commentary on their real world counterparts. They really don't make great weapons without intensive training in their use.
*The smuggling opium twist was inspired by DigitalTart's "Daybreak: Part One". I couldn't think of any other drug historically used in Japan.
And a new layer is added, a mystery introduced. Who is this mysterious figure leading the Tsunami? And how will they impact the fledgling Uzumaki clan? You'll find out soon enough. Hope you all liked it - leave a review!