A/N: So this chapter is not fully beta'd because my beta is busy, and it's really long for some reason. Also, I need to take a break for a week because my real life is quite stressful at the moment, so there won't be an update next Saturday, but there will definitely be one in two weeks at most. During this week, I'll go back and edit this chapter when I have time. So I apologise in advance.

Chapter 28 - Winter Wonderland

I am never coming back to the Land of Snow again.

It was not because of how cold the country was, nor was it because of the lack of tourist attractions in this god forsaken land. No, those were not the reasons. It was simply because of the fact that they had tried to kill me when I hadn't even planned on killing any of them (if I had, then that would be a different story). But now, I was definitely going to kill some of them.

It wasn't long before we were surrounded by soldiers popping up from the nearby railway. They had snowmobiles, and we were on foot. This was a declaration of war, but under the circumstances that we could return and inform the Konoha first, since when dealing with foreign relations, no bodies meant no evidence.

What was not helping the case was the fact that somehow, they had developed a chakra armour that could negate ninjutsu and I found out about that the hard way. I blew out five great fireballs one by one and set them free on the hordes of Snow shinobi. The icy cold weather of the country was undermining the power of my fire jutsu, but for mass damages, the fireballs were the most efficient choice.

They were supposed to be incinerated, but the moment my fireballs touched the shinobis, it was out like a poof. Instead, I was greeted by rows of ice spikes rising from beneath my feet. I jumped, turned and twirled in the air to dodge the incoming impalers. Eventually, I found a landing spot on one of the spikes, but a shower of kunais and senbons rained down on me.

Earth wall was not an option here, since one: the land was covered by ice, and two: I was not even standing on the ground. Therefore, I went for the old-fashioned way: kenjutsu and dodging. My sword parried apart the projectiles easily like leaves, and for those I couldn't catch, I dodged.

When I landed back next to Kakashi, my breathing was slightly hitched due to the high-speed movements I had just performed. He looked like he was having his fair share of trouble, but overall, he seemed to be holding well against the army.

"Any solution to the chakra negating armour?" I whispered to my teammate as we stood cautiously in the middle of hundred-some shinobis. We were at an impasse. Kakashi and I couldn't do anything to them because of their sheer numbers and the armour; the Snow shinobis knew that their attacks were ineffective against us. Actually, now that I thought about it, it was not an impasse, we were simply at a disadvantage. We were trapped.

"Taijutsu. If we can't blast them to pieces, then we might as well get rid of their heads." Yeah, Kakashi was definitely angry. Contrary to popular belief, taijutsu could be just as deadly as ninjutsu. As Anbu agents, we couldn't kill people the flashy way using ninjutsu, so taijutsu became our main area of focus.

"Understood." Leaving only a whisper behind, I appeared in front of one of the snow shinobis. The first head came off quite easily, his face was frozen with a shocked expression as I sliced my sword through his neck. My captain had just given me the permission to eliminate foreign shinobis on a diplomatic mission, and that was the best piece of news I'd heard all day.

A few more bodies dropped before they had the brain capacity to realise what the hell had happened. Kakashi and I were aiming to open up a hole in the circle, and at first, it was quite effective. The armour only protects their body and head, not their neck. Ninjutsu might not be precise enough to slice through that sliver of skin, but swords definitely could. Dozens of bodies fell under our blades, their blood spraying all over me and dyeing the white ground red. However, It didn't take long before the horde of shinobis realised the severity of the situation and started to thicken their defences. Taijutsu could be deadly, but it could also be ineffective against great numbers. Once again, we were stuck.

The shinobis moved cautiously around us in a circle, swords pointed inwards and volley guns raised at our heads. I could see the fear in their eyes that caused them to hesitate and it was all because of the cut up bodies at our feet. Everyone wants to live, no one wants to die.

"There has to be a limit as to how much chakra the armour can negate. We just have to break it." Yes, and that would be easy because…It was not going to be easy, but Kakashi's suggestion was a sound one, hell, at least it was much better than the impasse we were facing now.

"Let's see," I answered. Silently, I sheathed my tantō, raising only the ninjatō in an offensive stance. If we were talking about great damage to a single target without counting the Mangekyou Sharingan, then Chidori Blade was my best option.

As I honed the concentrated lightning chakra into my blade, the sound of a thousand birds chirping replaced the harsh siren of the wind. The crackling electricity filled the blade in an instant, dancing and resonating with the other source of lightning chakra besides me. On an invisible cue, we charged.

The Chidori Blade extended faster than the human eyes could reach and crashed into the chakra armour. I could see it making a large crack on the shinobi's armour as that shinobi's face contorted in fear. Come on, just a bit more, I thought hopefully, willing the Chidori to pierce a little deeper. But I could feel the power being negated and drained as the shinobi's fearful expression changed into a smirk and that made me desperately want to kill this guy. I guess that the only consolation was that the armour did break in the end, the remaining crackling electricity was just enough to shatter both the armour and his smirk before it disappeared into the darkness.

Somewhere in the crowd, another shinobi dropped dead as well. Before any of the enemies really got a picture of what had happened until Kakashi bounced back to my position, breathing heavily. It doesn't matter, we get the situation. Kakashi and I couldn't keep up with A-rank jutsu all day, and the taijutsu was getting ineffective by the second. Come on, after so many of their own got slashed by the neck, they were bound to pick up the tip of "protect your neck from sharp blades".

This is bad. We are in a desperate situation, and a desperate situation calls for desperate actions.

"If I can get your five seconds, can you get us out of here?" I asked lightly. What I was planning to do was crazy, but I did prefer to get out of here alive and in one piece.

"What―"

"We need a mass jutsu that can blow a path out for us. I can do that. But after that, I will be vulnerable, and I want to get out of here." I didn't let him finish his accusatory phrase. He doesn't have the right to be angry with me. This time, I can swear with my heart that I wasn't the one who waltzed into this sketchy situation. Kazahana Dotō is just crazy.

"Yes." He didn't waste time in giving me a clear answer, and that was all I needed.

Without hesitation, I pushed all of my chakras into my eyes, feeling them shift into the asymmetrical mangekyou sharingans, and then…Come on, silver giant, I don't know what you are yet, but I need your help…a silver mass surrounded me and for a second, I felt… strong.

It didn't matter if every cell in my body was hurting like hell; the silver ribcage blocked out all the incoming kunais and ice spears like an impenetrable fortress. I willed the bony hands to swing in a wide circle around us. Like a gorilla swatting down flies, the armoured shinobi were being swept aside as though they were nothing. They were not Orochimaru, and they didn't have the crazy regeneration ability he had. Even if it weren't my hand, I could feel several of them being crushed from inside out upon impact.

Like I expected, my chakra was draining fast as I kept on swatting the shinobi aside, slowly pushing a path out of the heavily crowded circle. The armour might not be able to absorb this mass amount of something I produced, but it was definitely draining it at a rate faster than I could replace.

I walked forward slowly, against the showers of projectiles and ninjutsus. Occasionally, there were a few explosions here and there, although I wasn't sure if that was intentional or due to the damaged chakra armours exploding.

Three, four, five…the five seconds were up just as I pushed the last horde of shinobi aside and opened up a small, narrow path in front of us. This should be enough, right? My determination wavered and the silver giant flickered.

There was a sound like 'bang', and then, I felt something scrape past my waist, leaving a trail of searing pain on my skin.

I turned around and stared at the direction of the castle with disbelief. There were only less than ten people standing by the castle gate, but every one of them was holding a volley gun. They have more of these monstrosities? By the familiar sensation of pain that I had just felt, the projectiles coming out of those guns were definitely not kunais. They were smaller, sharper, and much much faster.

Before I could even regain my balance, something or someone grabbed me and ran and therefore saved me from being blasted to pieces by lots and lots of metal pieces falling out of the sky. With one well-placed body flicker, Kakashi moved past the fallen Snow shinobi and started our poorly planned escape to Kami-knows-where.

When we were finally out of the circle of shinobis, I didn't have the time to celebrate, because the moment I raised my eyes, I saw the volley guns being reloaded and aimed us.

Damn it. I couldn't believe that I was going to die here of all places. I was prepared for the chance of dying on a mission. Hell, I was even prepared to die while killing Orochimaru or on my journey to find Itachi. But Land of Snow, really?

As the projectiles sailed over the sky, I wondered if we could out run them or parry them away with swords. However, it seemed like that was not needed. Before the shower of kunai-but-maybe-not could reach us, they all slowed down and their pathways converged. Like a whirlpool, they were sucked in by some unknown gravity until they disappeared.

I watched the scene unfold in front of me with amazement. It was an instinct that told me this time-space jutsu or something was the result of Mangekyou Sharingan, and there was only one more Sharingan-user around here.

Kakashi's left eye changed to a shape I had never seen before, like a three bladed Fuuma Shuriken. As he continued to suck the metal shrapnels into whatever dimension he had, his eye bled. Blood gathered on his eyelid and dripped down his face and onto the mask.

Not all of the projectiles were sucked in before he had to force his eye shut. However, it did slow them down considerably, enough for me to actually react and do something.

"You know, I fully expect you to get me out of here, even if you have to carry my dead body," I said to Kakashi as I took a step in front of him and started to make hand seals in blurred motions.

As I released all my chakra as wind-natured energy, a storm of cyclone appeared in front of us. The mini cyclone stirred up the snow from the ground and wrapped around all the projectiles currently flying through the air. The hope was that the projectiles' paths would be distorted (and maybe even turn around and hit a few Snow shinobis) and the dust of snowflakes would be able to cover up our trials.

The problem was that I didn't have enough chakra to maintain a proper Fūton: Whirlwind Dance, so instead of a controllable cyclone that was big enough to absorb all the projectiles in its current, all I got was a small rickety tornado that looked like it was falling apart.

After that, the memory was hazy, seeing that I had exhausted my chakra with that last ditch effort. However, I did remember being hit by one of the wild metal pieces at somewhere very painful.

Then, I remembered that I fell down and hit my head on the ground.

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ fuwa~fuwa~desu~~~

I woke up to a sharp pain in my body. It was a normal reaction, I supposed, but what really troubled me was the fact that I couldn't pinpoint where the pain was.

I winced loudly as I pushed myself off of the ground. Now that my consciousness was returning, I could vaguely pinpoint the two spots on my body that hurt like hell: my head and my stomach.

"Lie down, or you'll start to bleed again." I heard that familiar voice as I rubbed my temple lightly. Obediently, I lay back down on the icy floor and the straining pain on my stomach was indeed relieved for a second.

"Where are we?" I asked. I ran my hand down the side of my stomach and found the familiar touch of bandage soaked in blood. Just for the sake of curiosity, I pressed down on the wound. A flash of pain erupted immediately, but then it faded quickly and no more blood seemed to seep through. Great, no internal organ damage, that's something to celebrate for.

"Two hundred metres behind the Kazahana Castle. My pack dug an ice cave underground, so we will be safe here for a while." Oh, that explains the temperature here … wait, behind Kazahana Castle!

"You took us back to the enemy's fortress?" I sat up abruptly and yelled, completely ignoring his order to lie down. I saw Kakashi sitting down on the ground, leaning against the wall on the other side of the cave. One of his shoulders was wrapped up in bandages as well. If not for the fact that he was injured as well, I would definitely say something about that disapproving look on his face.

"Behind the castle, Maiko, be grateful that we are not in the castle dungeon. They blocked the roads to the harbour, and I couldn't exactly fight my way out carrying your body, can I? They will be expecting us on the trails to the harbour, but they won't be thinking of searching their backyard for awhile." Despite his infuriating attitude, I had to admit that he had a point. Well, he always had a point that I couldn't refute.

I pushed myself further up from the ground and supported myself on the walls as well. The cave was dark, even with the ice fractals that surrounded us. The dim light at the break of dawn provided just enough lighting for me to see the blasted projectiles that cleaved off part of my skin.

It definitely wasn't the kunai I was used to. The metal was smaller than a standard shinobi kunai for throwing and it didn't have a handle. Instead, it almost looked like as if the tip of a kunai was broken off to make it more aerodynamically favourable. If I didn't know better, I would have mistaken it for bullets.

This world didn't have modern weapons, kunai and shurikens were the closest things to a gun. Despite the apparent faster speed a bullet could travel, they could only be used in conjunction to a gun, and shinobis liked hands-on weapons much, much more. I had the knowledge of a gun's structure, but I never thought of introducing it here. I was content with the way things worked here, and I wanted to keep it that way.

However, somebody must have thought different. One way or another, someone stumbled on the way to built volley guns. It was not a secret that the Land of Snow had more advanced infrastructures and technology since more than five years ago. The harsh environment they lived in pushed for innovation, and the natural resources they mined gave them the ability to do so. Railways, power generators, snowmobiles and chakra armour. Even if the main power supply they used was more chakra than electricity, the idea was the same.

I supposed it was inevitable that they would move onto weapons after all the living conditions were met, especially considering how aggressive their current Daimyo was. A weapon like a kunai that had a longer range, one that would cause more damage and require fewer materials to make. It was logical to think that it was the next advancement in war if ninjutsu didn't exist. The only reason why I had never seen it in use before was probably because of how overpowering ninjutsu could be, but with the development of the chakra armour, I wasn't so sure anymore.

Ninjutsu was shinobi's way of life, and chakra was the base of it. It was not a secret that equipment that could restrain chakra existed, that was how prisoners were kept. Just like how the Snow army graciously demonstrated earlier, chakra-negating armour kept the long range ninjutsu in check and projectiles could most definitely counter the short-range taijutsu, especially if it was raining all over the sky.

"What now?" I asked the question of the day. From what I could tell, we had two issues. One, how to get past the soldiers. Two, how to get away from the island nation.

He stayed silent for a while as he closed his eyes in concentration. His mask was still stained with blood, but then again, we were covered in blood - mostly our enemy's blood which I was kind of proud of - that made the air full of metallic taste.

"How are you feeling?" He asked out of nowhere.

"Oh, I'm feeling like crap, but the wound is mild, so I can fight or do whatever it is you want me to do," I answered quickly. "How's your shoulder?"

"Mild, whatever your definition for that is." The satire in there was over the roof.

"Right now, our priority is to get ourselves out of here. Since the only way out is through the sea route, as long as we can get on an official vessel from the Fire Country at the last moment, we can get out. The only confidence the Snow Daimyo has in killing us is because no one will find out. But a whole vessel is so important that if he dared to attack it, he would surely be found out." Kakashi explained and I nodded in understanding. He was right, any vessel from the Fire Country would not turn us away since Konoha was under the Fire Daimyo's protection and had the status as the Fire Country's biggest military force.

"As for now, we are relatively safe here. The Snow Daimyo knows that the only way we can escape is through the harbour. He will be putting most of his defence in wait at the harbour instead of searching for us. That gives us some time to recover some of our strength." That's all good, but it's not the real problem. The real problem was how to get past the defence line. Ninjutsu was obviously ineffective, and our numbers were simply too small. Otherwise, I would say a full on taijutsu battle was not a bad idea. There was just something really relieving when you cut down your enemy with a blade, especially when you were really angry at being attacked for no legitimate reason.

"We need to figure out a way to get past the defence line, or everything will fail," I stated. For a few seconds, Kakashi didn't respond. I could see his gears turning, trying to reach a conclusion using the discouraging information we had. It was either bad or worse, but I refused to believe this was the worst. Trust me when I say that in terms of the level of messed-up, this mission could be ranked ten out of ten. However, just two months ago, I had a mission that could be ranked as an eleven on my scale. Compared to Orochimaru, I would rather take my chances with the Snow shinobi.

"I can get the silver giant out again, that should be able to push us a path," I suggested since it seemed to be the only thing working from our previous battles.

"No. You don't have enough chakra to maintain it. When we get to the harbour, there will be five times as many soldiers, waiting for us. If you get stuck in the middle and exhausted all your chakra, there's no fallback route for retreat." He shot me down so fast that I didn't even have time to explain.

"What about Amaterasu, the fire will keep on burning and it will spread through the shinobi. It will be like a goddamn firework."

"That would be nice to watch, except that you are not actually listening to me. In order for us to get through, how many do you have to burn, a hundred, two hundred? The only way an assault would work is if we have both a decoy and a backup. If you can't see, we don't exactly have any of them." I really wanted to hit him, just because he sounded like he was right all the time, even if he was right most of the time. We needed three things: long-lasting decoys, believable disguises, and some backup would be nice. It was a chain of failsafe, ensuring that if one failed, we still had another choice. Right now, two people couldn't exactly cover all three services.

"Shadow clones for the decoy?"

"Not with its inefficient chakra cost and the one-hit wonder." I frowned at his crisp words.

"Transformation jutsu?"

"They have armours that suck ninjutsu, and we have to get through hundreds of them. Just a disguise won't get us too far." My eyes twitched.

"You are just full of approval today, aren't you?" I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at his flawlessly emotionless expression.

"Just assessing the ideas, and so far, you are not living up to the standards." He stared back with a hint of mockery.

"Well, you are not contributing to the ideas. Why don't we just go back to the castle and try to kidnap the Daimyo, since you so graciously took us right to his backyard?" My voice was full of sarcasm, but after seeing Kakashi's unimpressed expression, I suddenly regretted the ill-timed response. I sounded harsher than my intent. He didn't have a choice and he had picked the best route under the pressure. I should be thanking him for saving my life.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way," I said reluctantly. Suddenly, I found the bandages on my stomach really interesting as I dipped my head and wondered how hard it was to say a 'thank you'. However, Kakashi let out an unexpected snort. Maybe the pressure was finally getting to him as well.

"Since we're out of ideas, just entertain me. What were you going to do after you kidnapped the Daimyo?" Kakashi asked half-heartedly.

"I don't know, ransom him for a passage home? Right now, I just want to beat the crap out of him. I came here perfectly nice and polite, and now I am a fugitive on an island nation." It wasn't a very good joke, but it helped to take my mind off of the impending problem we were supposed to solve.

For a second, he just stayed silent and it made me think that maybe I had gone overboard with bad jokes again. However, when I look up again and saw that calculating glint in his eyes, I knew that I had just dug my own grave.

"You do realise that it was a joke, right? Kidnapping the Daimyo? I know that it sounds easy and, I'll admit, really tempting, but it's suicidal!" It was funny, I had always thought that he would be the one who would be saying these things to me, not the other way around.

"Funny how you should say that," he responded nonchalantly. "In fact, I think we have a better chance of sneaking into the castle than getting past the border at the rate Dotō is deploying his army. After all, no risk, no gain." With that last word, he stood up, walked over to me, and extended his hand.

I stared at him for a while until I was absolutely sure that there was no hesitation in his face. Then, I took his hand and let him pulled me up from the ground.

"We better have a damn good plan other than just walking up the walls and breaking in through the windows."

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ fuwa~fuwa~desu~~~

It turned out, our plan was basically just walking up the walls and breaking in through the windows.

We picked the route that we used earlier to get out of the Kazahana castle and it lead us directly to the room where we were semi-killed.

I would imagine that the security of the castle was better than this, but with Dotō's strong desire to kill us at all cost, the troops were mostly out searching for us - or rather, trails of bizarre incidents caused by Kakashi's ninkens. There were only a few teams still left at the castle, and most of them were stationed at the front.

After all, who would be crazy enough to go back to the enemy's camp after finally escaping it?

Right. Us.

Still, I wouldn't let my guard down. Kazahana Dotō was a paranoid bastard no matter who he wanted to kill. By the time I popped through the window and landed in the sorry pile of wood that they called 'the guest room', I could already hear the heavy footsteps of soldiers surveying the hallway.

We squeezed into that little space the Daimyo called the 'closet' as we hid from the soldiers passing by. It turned out, it was the only thing that still had a cover; even the door of the room was gone. I peeked past the closet doors and for the first time, I actually saw what Dotō did to kill me.

The room was full of wooden splinters and charred dust. Scattered kunais and shurikens were stuck on the floors and the walls. Basically, most of the wooden furnishing in this room were gone, leaving only the charred remains and the stone wall underneath. My guess was, they tried to take us by surprise with the volley guns but in the end, it was a few small and concentrated explosions that had really 'killed' us.

Feeling the rage boil up inside of me, I took a step back and closed the door. The team of soldiers were almost gone; I could hear their footsteps diminishing. By the sounds, there were probably a dozen shinobi in one patrol team. A bit overkill for Dotō - actually, no, considering that I was planning to kill or kidnap him, I'd say that he underestimated us. If we had to, I was sure that we could get rid of one team. The problem was how to do it silently because I was sure there would be lots of screaming.

'Chamber or throne room?' I signalled my captain. It took him a second to open his eye, but he was just in time to see my signs.

'Probably the throne room. He has got to satisfy his ego somehow.' He signalled back.

'Should we split up?' I asked. He stayed still for a while before answering me.

'No. We can't afford to be split up in here. We move together and we leave together.' I nodded as we pushed open the closet doors and ventured into the hallway.

"Feels like I'm back in Nishikawa's mansion again," I muttered under my breath as I peered past the corners. Even though the technology here was more advanced than Konoha, their shinobi arts weren't that great. Instead of seals and traps, the Snow Daimyo relied on troops and his stupid armours. When I heard no one coming, I started to walk down the hall with Kakashi right beside me.

"Yeah, what exactly happened there? Why the hell would you go for the front entrance like some firestorm when you have the back exit mapped out?" As we trotted down the hall, Kakashi decided that it was the perfect time to dig up the bad history.

"I'll tell you if you tell me what happened on your last mission to Snow." I shot back and immediately, he went silent. "Yeah, I don't think so."

"They are not the same thing." Of course, when are they ever the same? Usually, it would be a really bad thing if a team of soldiers just happened to pass by. However, at this point, it was very effective in stopping this conversation that had gone into the deep end.

Immediately, I tucked myself behind a corner and watched as the trail of soldiers moved past the frame at the end of the hall. Kakashi was standing behind me as he crouched down with a kunai slipped out of his jacket.

"Hang on, I smell something." I tightened my grip on my swords when I heard the footsteps stop.

"What, your paranoia?" A chorus of laughter erupted at the other end of the hall, but that just made my body tensed because I heard the thudding footsteps come down the hall, towards where we were hiding.

"No, it smells like … blood." Shit, I forgot that we are covered in blood. I turned around to get a cue from Kakashi, and with one look, I knew exactly what we were going to have to do.

As he walked closer, the laughter faded, leaving only a trail of solemn footsteps behind. It only took him seven seconds to reach the end of the hall, but for me, those seven seconds felt like forever as I anticipated the moment he would peer past the corner when I would reach out and pull his neck back.

And that was exactly what I did. Everything went to hell the moment when I grabbed his neck, twisted it, and threw his body back to his teammates. Kakashi jumped out of the hiding place as the rest of the soldiers fell back like dominos. Oh, their highly prized chakra armour did absolutely shit against the swords and kunai. When in doubt, go with the old-fashion way.

I slammed one of the soldiers onto the ground before I stabbed my tantō through his neck. More blood sprayed out when I pulled the swords out, but I didn't have time to worry about the scarlet colour when another soldier loomed over me.

I kicked his right knee as he tried to punch me. He fell rather ungracefully, but before he could yell, I had already put a slash in his trachea. A few more fell down when Kakashi threw some shurikens in deadly curves that landed right on their faces.

As I hit the last soldier in the neck with the hilt of my sword, he went unconscious and fell down, right onto Kakashi's kunai. Quickly and silently, I walked around the bodies and pulled out any projectile weapons that were stuck on them. Right now, every piece of metal counts.

"I'm guessing there's no way to hide this, is there?" I asked when I saw my teammate standing by the walls, staring at the pile of bodies and spreading pools of blood with distaste.

"We just have to move faster, before they discover this. Come on, we are almost at the throne room." I followed him quickly into another hallway and then another one after that. He was following the trails we had memorised from when Dotō's messenger boy had led us to the guest room. Since the corridor was on the desolated side of the castle and we hardly gave those soldiers a chance to say a word before all of them turned into corpses, I'd say that we had maybe ten, fifteen minutes before the bloody pools were discovered.

The morning was starting to settle in and even the dreadful monotone colour scheme in the castle couldn't cover up the bright light shed by the sun. When the smell of food rolled in, I suddenly realised that it was breakfast time.

"It's the breakfast time. He should be in the dining hall," I whispered. The problem now was, I had no clue where the dining hall was. It seemed that Kakashi had realised the same problem because he promptly stopped on his tracks. He just stood there for a while before finally starting to move again. However, I could tell that he was moving in a direction foreign to both of us.

It didn't take long for me to realise what he was doing because the aroma of food had quickly gotten stronger and stronger. Eventually, after a few corridors, we arrived at the place where the aroma originated from. The kitchen.

"About Nishikawa's mission, he was dealing in the human trafficking business." I didn't know why I would say that, especially now. But as we followed the servant boy who carried a tray of cuisine - the same one who kept on telling me to wait for the Daimyo - through the narrow passage, I decided that there was no better time to make a conversation. My captain didn't say anything, instead, he just walked on and listened.

"He tried to drug me and sell me, so I played along and waited until they thought I was safely locked in a box." I paused for a second before continuing, "I was planning to kill Nishikawa quickly, but there were other children there, kept in the same room. They would have faced a fate far worse than before if Nishikawa had been killed right at that moment."

"So I told them to wait until I could create a diversion and then they should run away through the exit by the bathhouse. After that. I —" "You decided to go out the farthest exit and take every shinobi with you." He finished the sentence for me and I nodded. The boy was still walking unsuspectingly in front of us. He wasn't wearing any chakra armours, so I could see his chakra system at the brain very clearly.

"That's it? You could have just told me and I wouldn't think that you had some suicide tendency." Well, first of all, that's an overkill. Secondly, I've got a freaking witness still alive and well in the village. Oh, and apparently, he seems to hate me.

"It's embarrassing, It shouldn't have happened, that's not what I was supposed to do. That's not what I was …" trained to do. I caught myself before I could finish that sentence. Trained by whom? OLYMPUS doesn't exist here. No matter how much I tell him, there was no way that I was ever going to tell him about that place.

"We face choices on every mission. For example, I'm pretty sure that there are some protocols about no kidnapping Daimyo on a diplomatic trip, but still, here we are," He said. "Anbu missions aren't that black and white. Nothing is ever that black and white. That being said, I'm not telling you that you can just do whatever you want as long as it gets the job done." Oh yes, there was always a lecture that followed. But for that moment, I was very glad that even in this situation, I still had a mentor that I could make small talks with.

"The last time I went to the Land of Snow, I was supposed to protect the Snow Daimyo - not Dotō, the previous Daimyo, his brother. Dotō planned a coup that caught us off guard, and I failed. The Daimyo asked me to protect his daughter instead, and that's probably the only good thing out of that mission." Okay, I did not expect that. Even though he only said three sentences, that was about three sentences more than what he would tell me normally.

"You don't have to tell me, I wasn't making a trade," I muttered as the messenger boy took another turn. I could hear the faint clatter of utensils against the plates in a room beyond the hallway. This was it. Kazahana Dotō's dining room.

"I know. But it wouldn't be fair, would it? Anyway, we're here, now's your turn, Sharingan." I turned around and gave him a death glare (patented by the Uchiha).

"You call me 'Sharingan' one more time, I'm coming after you when I'm out of this goddamn country," I said that with a smile that I practised for diplomatic purposes. Although I would imagine that it probably looked very creepy with all the blood on me. "I am much more than my family's kekkei genkai." He just raised his hand and signalled me to the servant boy who was still oblivious.

I flickered in front of the boy in a fraction of a second, and before he could even say the word "Uchiha", the genjutsu was already taking effect. Slowly, he held out his wooden tray for me diligently. I took the tray and watched him walk away before reaching for that door left ajar.

Once again, I was back in the Snow Daimyo's presence. He was sitting at a long table, alone, isolated, with no one but two guards guarding the door at the other side. His back was facing me, therefore, he couldn't see my bloodied state. Unfortunately, his guards saw me; but fortunately, it was Kakashi's job to deal with them.

Me? I just slammed the wooden tray right on the Snow Daimyo's head.

It felt good when he fell down on the floor accompanied by a loud crash. Immediately, I threw away the tray and pulled out my swords. I aimed for his elbows because I couldn't kill him, yet, but I still need him to be as harmless as possible. Nobody said that he couldn't be handicapped.

My swords sliced through his clothes, but they bounced off his elbows with a 'ting'. Right, his favourite chakra armour. Just as I was about to grab for his neck, he punched me in the stomach. I didn't expect him to be that strong because that punch knocked me to the floor.

I rolled away just in time before his next fist could slam into my face, but before I got up, I managed to hook onto his arm and kicked his midriff with all I'd got. Eventually, he crashed into the table leg and somehow managed to collapse the long table. Why couldn't he just be buried under all that rumbles? I lamented as I got up from the floor.

"What a joke, Uchiha girl. You can't use your prided genjutsu on me anymore, and without it, you are nothing but an arrogant and spoilt brat." Dotō mocked as he pushed away the rumbles and stood up to face me. Yeah, like I hadn't heard that before.

With an instant body flicker, I arrived behind him on a piece of the slanted table. He turned around immediately and swung his arm at my face. I dodged quickly, one of my hand latched onto his forearm while the other locked onto his elbow. He screamed loudly when I smashed his shoulder onto the table top and twisted his arm high up in the sky. The crunching sound of his shoulder joint startled the two guards and it wasn't long before they were taken out by Kakashi. However, I was quite aware that his scream - which was very undignified for a Daimyo - was definitely attracting all his guards, if the earlier sound of table crashing wasn't already doing so.

His other arm went by the same fate before I hauled him up by the collar of his armour and stuck the point of my tantō by his neck. Kakashi returned to my position and helped me got the Daimyo to his feet. By that time, the room was already filled with incoming waves of soldiers. They stopped in shock when they saw the sword by their Daimyo's throat and scrambled around with uncertainty.

"How's that for a 'brat'?" I spat out the words to the uncooperative Daimyo first before turning my attention to the crowds. "Move one weapon and your Daimyo is dead, with a sword through his neck." It went without saying that it effectively stopped their movements.

"Tell your soldiers to stand down, Daimyo-dono, we just want to go home. As long as you provide us with a passage home, we won't kill you." Kakashi said to the Daimyo, who grunted out some really unpleasant words before I had to press the blade closer.

"Is this your plan? How naive." Dotō mocked immediately and I scratched a thin red line on his neck.

"No need to be unpleasant, Daimyo-dono. Prepare a train to the harbour and let us get on a ship to the mainland, then we will be out of your hair forever. It only takes an hour, and you get to keep your life." I said to my hostage as a droplet of blood flowed down my blade.

"You wouldn't dare. If you kill me, it will start a war." How ironic. I could feel him shifting uncomfortably, opening his mouth and closing them nervously. He was afraid; very afraid of death.

"And you think that killing us will stop it? Believe us, Daimyo-dono, Konoha have no qualms winning a war against your country. If the Uchiha Clan Head dies, Konoha will destroy Snow into pieces; you have no idea how important she is to our village. But if you escort her out of the country, you might just save your kingdom from a fate of destruction." When Kakashi said that speech to Dotō with the utmost seriousness, I had to resist the urge to snort. Wow, I have no idea the village cares this much either. But as long as he believes it, let the magical words ring. Some soldiers took a small step back from the circle. I could see from their paled faces that they were also afraid; very afraid of a war they couldn't win.

After ten excruciatingly long seconds, the Daimyo finally decided to order the guards: "Fine, you win this round. Guards, clear out a path to the train station and let our guests go." Then he spat out to me: "I hope you both die in the ocean." I eyed him suspiciously as the soldiers slowly opened up a path for us to the door. This feels … way too easy. Something is wrong here.

Maybe it was because of my paranoia, I saw his head moved away from the sword for just an inch and nodded in a motion so small that I doubt anyone would pay attention at this point. But I knew, with a gut instinct, that one of his soldiers saw.

Immediately I squatted down and pulled Kakashi down as well when a few kunai sailed over our head and landed on the wall. However, that feeling of something wrong didn't leave me, because the projectiles were thrown way too high for it to hit either of us. Instead, it looked as if they were meant to hit that tiny spot right under the ceilings.

Shit, they were trying to activate a trap.

I barely had the time to get rid of the baggage we called the Snow Daimyo and storm out of the nicely made path with Kakashi, before every freaking senbon in the world rained down on our exact position, making the whole ceiling looked like a giant reflective crystal.

"Catch them! Kill them! What are you waiting for!" I heard the Daimyo's frantic scream behind us, followed by legions of footsteps that shook this place like a mini-earthquake.

See, this was why I said that it was suicidal. One wrong move after we took him hostage, we would put ourselves in a really, really, really bad position. Like this one, where we were stuck in a castle with every freaking guard alerted of our presence.

Should have knocked him out (or kill him) when I had the chance. Now we know one thing for sure: Kakashi and I would make for a terrible team of terrorists.

I ran as fast as I could because if I didn't, I would really die. All of a sudden, I felt my stomach twisting into knots because of Dotō's previous hit, and it made me stumbled for one step. That one step was all that it took for some guard to latch onto my arm and pull me back.

Ignoring the searing pain, I smashed my elbow into his side. Ouch, that floating rib breaking off has got to hurt. Then, I turned and kicked him in the neck, sending him tumbling down the corridor, blocking the path for the rest of the shinobis as well. When I turned around, Kakashi was already by the corner of this lane, waiting for me to catch up.

I ran to the corridor and turned right, despite having absolutely no idea where it would lead me. All I could do right now was to trust that at least one of us knew where we were going. Just as I turned the corner and disappeared out of our pursuer's line of sight, a door opened inward abruptly and someone pulled me in.

Imagine my surprise when I saw another Kakashi who shut the door when I clearly saw him running down the corridor like a tenth of a second ago. A clone, I suddenly realised when I heard the earthquake rumbling down the hallway, moving right past us to chase that fake target he had set up.

I stayed there for a while, sitting down by the door, pressing my back to the wooden panel, hearing my own urgent breaths, until the footsteps drew away and disappeared. I leant my head back onto the door and closed my eyes for a second because this might be the last moment of peace I would get before they started to check the rooms.

When I opened my eyes again, Kakashi was already peeking outside the shaded window. Reluctantly, I stood up and turned my attention to the door. I cut out a strip of fabric from my shirt and tied it around the door handles. The fabric for shinobi clothes was flexible and durable, so it was my hope that it would buy us some time before anyone could bust through the doors.

"How's the outside looking," I asked lightly, but with one grim look on his face, it was probably better if I didn't ask. So instead, I looked around the room. It was dusty, with rusted weapons and broken wooden panels everywhere. This room looked like it was supposed to be storing outdated weapons before it was replaced by mechanics. Shame, some of the kanatas would look pretty good if they were cared for properly.

Nonetheless, my attention was attracted to the single scroll in the midst of fragile weapons. It had that aura that clashed with the dreary atmosphere in the room like it was a beacon for something, good or bad. It was one of those days, where I had no choice but to say, screw this, I'm taking a chance.

I reached out for the paper scroll and pulled it out of the weapon piles, under Kakashi's suspicious eyes, I opened it and let the dust fell out. Underneath all that dirt and dust, I saw lines. Lots and lots of lines that didn't make sense.

"That's the array for a time-space transportation, well, at least the part that I can recognise." At some point, Kakashi appeared behind me and started to analyse the artifact from above my shoulder.

"The time-space transportation like your Mangekyou that sucks things into nowhere, or the kind like a reverse summon that will get us out of here?" The moment he heard the second part of my sentence, he immediately understood my intention. Then, he looked at me with that expression that just yelled out "Are you crazy?".

"A lot could go wrong, like everything. It might kill us; it might not work; it might land us back to where Dotō had his ambush. You don't mess with seals, especially with seals that you don't understand." He looked like he wanted to hit me on the head to see if my logic could be fixed. However, I didn't think that he get to say that when he practically just did the same thing a few hours ago.

Before I could answer, a loud crash on the door startled both of us. The strip of fabric prevented the door from being smashed open, but it was not going to last long.

"We don't have a choice. After all, no risk, no gain." That was all I said when the second crash sounded. I held up the opened scroll on my left hand and extended my right hand to him. He stayed silent for a second, but when the third crash thundered through the room, he finally took my hand.

We never heard the fourth crash, because as soon as I injected my own chakra in, the array lit up like a carved lantern. Then, a bright light engulfed us, illuminating the room until we couldn't see anything anymore.

Imagine my disappointment that when I opened my eyes again, I saw the same snow plain I was getting sick of seeing. The bad news was, we were still in the Land of Snow, but on the bright side, there were no stone castles in sight.

However, something was different, the snow was whiter, and the sky seemed brighter. If the scenery in the Land of Snow was greyed out by the industrial soot, then this was a pure snow world before all the technology had arrived.

Kakashi was beside me, looking just as stunned. We were transported to… somewhere? Please don't tell me that we are suddenly at the south pole now. This just might push me over the edge and activate that gene for massacre tendency which the Konoha council keeps on insisting that I have.

'Thud, thud, thud' I heard footsteps, heavy, solemn ones that spoke of authority, and it wasn't long before I saw what exactly was making that sound.

A pack of wolves appeared, led by a huge pale grey wolf, dressed in some kind of armour akin to samurai. It wasn't really the footsteps that were loud, but rather the clinking of metal that spoke of authority.

Kakashi winced beside me and covered his face with a hand. This was not a good sign, Kakashi might complain, get angry, and ignore people, but when he winced, that meant things just became outrageously sketchy.

"How could I not recognise it? It's not a transportation scroll, it's a freaking summoning contract. This is where the summoning creatures live, and by the looks of it, they are not very friendly." True to his words, the wolves bore those shiny white teeth to us like we were their supper.

Crazy Daimyo, alcohol, chakra negating armours, and now, we have antagonistic summoning creatures. Why not, just add it to my itinerary for a day trip to the Winter Wonderland.

"Who dares to trespass our sacred land!" The leading wolf spoke in a deep, authoritative voice, behind him, there were all kinds of wolves, dark grey ones, white ones, large ones, small ones. They all looked very menacing and did not look very happy with the sight of humans.

"I came here through a scroll," I answered blandly since I had no other choice.

"Human, what do you want?" The Alpha asked again, with a lot of disdain in his voice.

What do I want? How about I tell you what I don't want. I don't want you to eat me; I don't want stay in the Land of Snow; I don't want to die… There were a million thoughts running in my head about how my day sucked. However, there was just that one tiny thought born out of the craziness that would have definitely slipped away if I had not decided to grab onto it.

"I want to go home. So please, I need your help."