Chapter 37
"Sometimes, I don't know which is worse: too much noise, or too much silence. Curse these sensitive ears."
Temari nearly fell back when the dragon appeared in the sky, its white form blocking the sun and casting a bright, flickering shadow over the forest. "Holy shit," Kankurou whispered, paling as he tipped his head back to stare at it.
"Oi, brats, don't lose your footing!" one of the ninken barked, drawing the siblings' attention back to the present. "Boss'll probably be here any minute now, and when he does you'll need to be ready!"
Its words served as a good anchor point for Temari, the kunoichi quickly sobering and shooting the dog a glare. "I'd still like to know what we're preparing for," she ground out, but all of the canines present in the clearing chose to remain silent, much to her annoyance. Gritting her teeth, she chose to refrain from needling at them and flashed another worried look at the trees, watching the fire fade away.
After meeting with the Leaf group, Kakashi had firmly ordered the two elder Sand Siblings to follow his ninken to the location of some "Nine Ro" thing. They didn't know what that meant, but considering that silver-haired jounin happened to be the infamous Kakashi of the Sharingan, the siblings had decided not to argue. Upon arriving in the clearing they'd found more canines waiting who quickly positioned them atop some nondescript mounds of dirt, with no explanation as to why.
Sitting around waiting grated on her nerves. Temari never liked being idle, and to do so while her brother was so close to a rampage...
As if to spurn her thoughts she heard a pained roar from his direction, making her wince. "Shit," she hissed, her eyes widening as memories of the bloody night from eight years ago flickered to the front of her mind.
"Dammit, he's about to let loose!" Kankurou yelped. "Will this Nine-Ro thing actually work?"
"Eh, probably," one of the dogs snorted. "Worked for the Nine Tails." Both of the Sand Siblings froze and slowly turned to stare at it, their jaws falling open with shock. The other canines also turned to glare at their fellow ninken, making the wolf-like dog wince and shrink back, its ears flattening against its skull.
"The... Nine Tails?" Kankurou repeated, his voice way too high-pitched and quiet. "Y-you mean, like, the fox?"
This time none of the dogs responded, leaving the siblings to just stare in horror as they tried to wrap their minds around this. Temari's eyes drifted to her feet, staring at the mound in wonder and horror.
What the hell is Nine-Ro!?
At thirteen, Masaru could count the number of times he'd woken up in his mindscape on one hand.
While some people would jump at the chance to enter their own mind, Masaru hated it. Phantom corpses of his kinsmen littered the black void almost as far as the eye could see, their monochrome Sharingan eyes staring at the endless darkness. Every time he saw them his stomach would flip and he'd want to cover his eyes, trying to will them to disappear and go away, but they never left. Their constant presence only solidified just how deeply the massacre had scarred him.
It didn't help that he only seemed to enter his mindscape after traumatic events. And right now, having just killed two men in battle, exhausted a good amount of his chakra, and witnessing a jinchuuriki fully transform, he definitely felt more than slightly overwhelmed.
At least he didn't have to go through it alone.
"So, do you wanna talk about it?" Akari asked, tilting her head at him. They sat cross-legged towards the edge of the void, a wall of silvery white flames wreathing them and blocking the corpses from view. Masaru just shrugged, avoiding looking at her.
The Akari his mind conjured looked different from how he'd like to envision her, forever eight and with an empty eye socket weeping black blood which dripped onto her shirt. It hurt to look at he sometimes, to see that gaping hole in her head where her right eye should be. Yet even so she still shined like a beacon of light, the sole spot of color in his monochrome world with her peachy skin and chocolate-colored hair, vibrant violet shirt, and navy capris and sandals.
Shadow or not, as far as Masaru was concerned this Akari was still his sister, even if she was just a broken, twisted version of her produced by his own mind. And just like his sister, she puffed out her cheeks at his obvious avoidance. "Hey, Masaru, don't just shrug and look away! That won't make your problems go away!"
"Is there really a problem, though?" he muttered, reluctantly lifting his eyes towards her.
"Gaara just said mom killed me by cutting off my head," she deadpanned. "How does that make you feel?" Masaru frowned, absently playing with the hem of his shirt as he considered his response.
"I... don't really care," he admitted quietly, his brow burrowing. "He was wrong. Mom wouldn't do that."
Ryoko had so many problems. Every time he thought back to his childhood, he could pick out more and more signs that his mother had not been normal and healthy. But hurting her children? Never. She loved them too much to ever harm them; for all her flaws, she never once made him feel scared for his life. She'd kill herself first before touching them.
"Good, so we're on the same page. Now, what about this?" Akari shifted to her knees to crawl behind him, poking the freshly shorn ends of his hair. The cut looked and felt noticeably rough, a large chunk chopped out of the center so stray hairs tickled the back of his neck while the rest trailed down his back. "That haircut was pretty sudden. How do you feel about that?"
"I guess a little bad," he admitted after a second of hesitation, "but I'm also relieved I don't have to untangle severed fingers from it." Both of them shuddered at that, faces contorting into twin grimaces as they recalled the digits tapping against his back when he'd stood up. Once Masaru woke up for real and had some time for reality to set in he'd probably be a bit more upset about cutting his hair, but right now the lack of severed fingers outweighed any grief he might feel.
Pushing the disturbing thought away, he reclined on his back and tipped his head back to stare at the darkness hanging overhead. "Do you think we'll be okay?"
"Well, yeah. Kakashi's there. He'll protect you, if only so he won't feel even worse about Uncle Obito." She snorted and rolled her eye as she spoke, the gesture reminding Masaru this variation of Akari had a bleeding eye socket. He shuddered and tried to focus on the intact eye.
"Yeah, that's true," he allowed. "Gaku-sensei says he spends a lot of time at the memorial." The brunet had discovered this little factoid while trying to figure out why Kakashi showed up late to his team's meetings every day, mostly because his cousin's constant complaints had started to get on his nerves.
"Tenzo," Akari said with a pointed look, and Masaru looked at her in confusion before realizing she'd been correcting him.
"Right. Tenzo, I guess." Akari always had been quicker to adapt to changes like that. Every year in the academy they'd have to use fake names for a week as practice for espionage missions, and only Akari had managed to never use the wrong name. Everyone else had flubbed and used their peers' real names at least once, but Akari had no trouble adapting to her own alias, even ignoring the teacher when he called her real name as a test.
"Kobayashi Gaku always seemed kinda cheesy to me," his twin's specter mused, her lips curving into an amused smirk. "I mean, Gaku? That basically means 'study.' And, well, Kobayashi didn't seem too weird, just a bit more common, but—'little forest'? And he has mokuton?" She snickered in a definitively unladylike manner, flashing her teeth in a big grin. "That is so lazy! Were they even trying?"
"...Wait." Masaru frowned, his brow pinching together as he recalled something. "Back when I first fought those bandits, when that wooden pillar suddenly slammed one in the jaw. That was him."
Akari's peals of laughter abruptly halted as she gawked at him, her lone eye wide in surprise. "Oh. Yeah, I think you're right. Huh. Well, that's one mystery solved, and a million more to go." She waved a hand in a vague sweeping gesture, but quickly grew serious once more. "You can worry about that later. How do you think things will go with Gaara? That roar at the end didn't sound too good. Do you think they'll be able to stop him?"
Masaru frowned, turning his gaze to the white flames next to them as he contemplated the situation. "I don't know. Kakashi-sensei seems to have some kind of plan, but I don't know enough about it to figure out if it'll work. It sounds like they needed to do it in a specific place? Oh, but sensei was there too," he added as an afterthought. "And I think the mokuton can control Tailed Beasts? So they have that going for them at least."
"And also that giant toad Naruto summoned," Akari added, a mischievous gleam in her eye as she leaned forward. "That thing was huge! It can probably stomp Gaara into dust with a couple hops!" Her voice took on a sort of sadistic glee that only eight-year-olds could feel, no doubt amused by the cartoonish image the description conjured, but her smile faded almost instantly as Masaru's face quickly darkened.
"If Gaara hurts Naruto..." His eyes narrowed, bleeding bright red as the Sharingan swirled to life.
"I'll make sure he regrets it."
Kakashi cursed as he lunged forward, scooping Masaru off the forest floor. Chakra exhaustion had clearly taken its toll on the boy; he looked far paler than usual, even by the Uchiha clan's normally pasty standards. Considering he'd just performed what could easily be classed as a B-rank jutsu, Kakashi didn't find it too surprising he'd passed out.
Brushing some of the hair away from Masaru's neck so he could check his pulse, he paused and his eyes narrowed sharply. A single kanji had been printed on the nape of his neck, the black ink standing in stark contrast to his pale skin: "Hope."
No wonder Ryoko hadn't prepared a memento for him. She'd skipped the middle man and placed the seal directly onto him.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura called as she rushed to their side, her expression frantic with panic and fear. She stumbled to a stop as she caught sight of Masaru cradled in his arms, what little color remained draining from her face. "Is he—he's going to be okay, isn't he?" Kakashi didn't respond right away, pressing his fingers against Masaru's neck.
"It's a bit slow, but his pulse is there. He should be fine with some rest, it's just exhaustion." As he spoke Sasuke arrived onto the scene, skidding to a stop a few feet away and staring at his cousin with increasingly obvious horror.
"That dragon," he whispered. "Was... Was that—? How?" His question had its merits. People didn't just spontaneously learn or develop high-level ninjutsu out of the blue like that, it required a certain degree of training. At the very least, Kakashi was pretty sure someone would notice a dragon made of white fire snaking into the sky at some point.
Then again, he thought with a discreet glance at the kanji on Masaru's neck, Masaru probably didn't know he could do that either. He didn't know if it was possible to encode knowledge of a jutsu into a seal, but at this point it made more sense than any of the other alternatives. Jiraiya would go crazy once he heard about this; the man wasn't exactly fanatical about fuinjutsu like Minato-sensei had been, but he did enjoy little surprises and mysteries like this.
For now though, Kakashi decided to keep his suspicions to himself. "Most likely, yes. But more importantly, we need to move." He glanced at Gamabunta as he spoke, the giant toad towering far above the trees with the thick foliage shrouding his full form from sight. Several years had passed since the last time Kakashi had seen the chief of the Toad Summons, and thinking back that night hadn't been very pleasant either.
Some sort of irony existed there, he thought distantly. Last time Minato had summoned Gamabunta to fight the Kyuubi, and now his son had done the same to fight the Ichibi. Right now he had no time to muse over it though, he had a group of teenagers counting on him to keep them alive and a village to save.
"For now, we'll continue to act under the assumption that Nine-Ro is still in motion," he declared, adjusting his hold on Masaru to properly support his neck. "Sakura, you're with me. Sasuke, I want you to stay behind and see if you can help Naruto."
"What!?" Sasuke blurted, his features contorting in shock and rage. "But—but why? I mean, wouldn't I be more useful—just—" He shot his unconscious cousin a desperate look, his concern clearly etched on his face. Kakashi's own features softened slightly, but his voice held that same, cool edge as he responded.
"I understand your concerns, but this is the best division of our current resources. Nine-Ro happens to require a certain amount of chakra from the participants, and you've already depleted a decent portion of your reserves by using the Chidori earlier. Along with not using as much chakra today, Sakura also has better control, so the drain is less likely to impact her. Beyond that, Gaara seems to be targeting you, so we may need you to act as bait if Naruto can't convince Gamabunta to steer him that direction.
"On that note," he added almost as an afterthought, "Naruto appears to be losing." His words gave the two genin pause, and they turned to look at the giant toad looming nearby. Angry yells drifted from the top of his head as a familiar orange blob bounced around, and while they couldn't hear what was being said, the toad's irritation gave them a pretty good idea.
"...So basically, we're counting on Naruto to convince the giant toad to help?" Sakura asked flatly, and Kakashi rewarded her with a cheery eye-smile.
"Pretty much."
"Sasuke-kun, please help Naruto!" she pleaded, spinning to face her teammate with an interesting blend of frantic desperation and bland dismay on her face. "He can't even get along with half the ninja in the village! No way he can talk a stubborn toad into taking on the Ichibi on his own!"
"Fine, I'll go help," Sasuke agreed with a sigh, and shot Kakashi a pointed glare. "But if anything happens to Masaru—"
"I swear on all of the names on the memorial stone, I will make sure nothing happens to Masaru," the jounin cut in solemnly, and his students looked startled by his words. After a moment Sasuke seemed to decide that to be sincere enough, as he gave a brisk nod before racing off towards Gamabunta.
Well, I hope this works, Kakashi thought blandly as he watched his student leave. Frankly, he thought Sasuke might actually be worse at diplomacy than Naruto given his naturally broody disposition. Kami knows the boy lacked any people skills. At this point he was counting more on Sasuke somehow inciting some of that powerful charisma Naruto surely inherited from Minato-sensei, giving Naruto the last boost needed to persuade Gamabunta to help.
For now though he turned to his remaining student. "Let's go," he said, and Sakura bobbed her head before following him deeper into the forest.
To call Uzumaki Naruto infuriated would be an understatement.
A giant toad grumbled beneath him, a giant fox roared inside him, and a half-formed Tanuki shrieked in front of him. His own voice only added to the cacophony of rage and anger filling his ears, tears of frustration threatening to spill.
"Come on!" he screamed at Gamabunta. "Lives are at stake here! Just hurry up and help me, dammit!"
"And for the last time, I don't care!" the great toad bellowed irritably. "The Toads have no loyalty to Konoha! We swear our lives to those who contract with us, and I have not accepted you as my contractor!"
Naruto almost screamed at his continued stubborn refusal, seething with barely repressed rage. He knew that the damn toad hadn't been too fond of him the first time he summoned him, but right now they needed to fight Gaara! Every second they wasted arguing was another second closer to the Ichibi being released, its chakra leaking and filling the air with nauseous energy.
Worse yet, Naruto could feel the fox respond to that chakra, struggling for control even more than usual. He ground his teeth as he fought to keep his emotions under control, his fists clenching tightly at his sides. His mind flickered to Masaru's face as his clones burst onto the scene, the fierce resolve that had filled his eyes before fading to something deader as the white fire dragon fizzled out.
Masaru... He had been the first one to treat Naruto like a friend. Sure, he was awkward at times, and he could get kinda scary when he was mad. And yeah, he let down Naruto once, and he might never get over that. But even so, he had been the first person Naruto could really, truly call a friend. The first person to ever smile at him besides Jiijii and old man Teuchi and Ayame-nee-chan, and genuinely mean it.
Funny... Gaara made him cry, so I should be mad, right? So why do I just feel sad?
For all the danger the Ichibi posed, Naruto couldn't help but feel a strong sense of pity for Gaara. One of the clones he'd sent after their group encountered Gaara's siblings had arrived just in time to overhear a good chunk of his speech about his childhood, and while Naruto hadn't heard all of it—the clone arrived at the part where he mentioned his mom cursing his name—he'd heard enough to see the similarities.
Memories of empty playgrounds and harsh whispers surfaced in his mind, his heart lurching with loneliness and longing as he'd watch other kids walk with their parents or play with their friends. Just like Gaara, he, too, had grown up alone, hated and feared for something he couldn't control. People looked at him and saw a demon rather than its container, and treated him as such.
In another world... Could I have been like Gaara?
"Naruto!"
Sasuke's voice drew him out of his reveries and he snapped his head to the side to see his teammate standing atop a nearby tree, watching him with an almost manic look. Naruto gave a start at the sight, blinking a few times to see if he would disappear. "S-Sasuke?" he sputtered. "Wh-what are you—"
"What are you doing!?" Sasuke called, cupping his hands around his mouth to carry his voice further.
"Tch, another brat?" Gamabunta grumbled, eying the newcomer with disdain. Sasuke's face just grew more steely at the insult, his lips pulling back in a scowl.
"Hey! Why aren't you helping? Don't you care at all that a freaking Tailed Beast is about to go on a rampage!?" He gestured wildly to Gaara as he spoke, his Sharingan spinning wildly. The screaming had tapered off at this point, but with each passing second the sand tanuki just grew larger and larger, edging ever closer to completion. Gaku/Tenzo's wood stuff seemed to slow the transformation, but it wouldn't work forever.
"Not my problem," the toad huffed. "I can just go back to Mount Myoboku when he snaps." Naruto squawked in disbelief atop his head while Sasuke shot him a look of utter disgust. Words seemed to fail him, but fortunately, they did not fail Naruto for long.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME!" he exploded. "Come on already! I signed the dumb contract and everything! You're supposed to work for me now!"
"Just because you had enough chakra to summon me doesn't mean I'll automatically accept you as my partner. Summons aren't slaves, we have a choice in who we work with! And right now, I don't see any point in risking my life for some stupid brats!"
Naruto couldn't even form a coherent sentence, he just started screaming wordlessly in utter exasperation. Down on the branch Sasuke didn't look much better, his eyes glowed bright red as he glowered at the toad with an even angrier scowl than usual. "You might not like Naruto, but you work for Jiraiya, don't you!?" he questioned hotly. "I don't think he'd want Konoha destroyed either!"
Gamabunta shifted so suddenly Naruto lost his footing and fell on his butt, the toad sharply turning to lean closer to his teammate. Sasuke winced and staggered back under the abrupt intensity in the toad's eyes, his body visibly tensing and paling as he stared at him.
"Do not assume you can speak on behalf of my contractors, brat," Gamabunta warned, his entire body vibrating from the low note his voice took. "You are children, nothing more. I have no respect for those who carelessly throw around the names of others because they lack the strength to fight their own battles."
He pulled back and the Uchiha remained rooted to his spot in a stunned stupor, unable to look away. Rubbing his butt as he sat on Gamabunta's head, Naruto's brow furrowed as he thought over the toad's words. No respect for those who throw around names, huh...
"Hey, Gamabunta," he said lowly. "Did I ever introduce myself?"
"What?" the toad huffed. "What're you rambling on about now, brat?" Naruto jumped to his feet and began running down the length of Gamabunta's head, his eyes gleaming with newfound determination.
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" he shouted. "I like ramen and my teammates Sakura and Sasuke, even if Sasuke's a bastard! I dislike people who hurt my friends and the three minutes it takes for ramen to cook!" He leaped onto the branch where Sasuke stood, nearly losing his footing as he landed but thankfully Sasuke grabbed his arm to steady him. Naruto flashed his teammate a grateful grin before he spun around to face Gamabunta directly.
"And my dream is to be Hokage!" he proclaimed loudly. "Do you know what being the Hokage means? That means I have to protect my village no matter what! And that guy back there?" He jabbed a finger towards the sand beast directly behind him, which had nearly finished its transformation at this point. "Right now he's gonna destroy Konoha unless we do something!"
Gamabunta's eyes narrowed, huffing under his breath. "And? If you're gonna be the Hokage, then why can't you stop it?"
"Because—" Naruto stopped abruptly and frowned, his gaze falling to his feet. A sense of self-loathing washed over him, and he sucked in a sharp breath and forced himself to admit, "Because I'm not strong enough, dammit! Someday I'll be the Hokage, hell, I'll die to protect Konoha if that's what it takes to protect it! But right now I don't have the power to fight a Tailed Beast! But I at least know we can stop it!
"And it's not just for Konoha's sake!" he added heatedly, his fists clenching at his sides so tight he could feel his nails dig into his palms. "Right now Gaara's suffering too! I don't know the full story, but I know enough to get that he's only this way because everyone treated him like a monster! He didn't ask to have the Ichibi sealed inside him, dammit! Just like I didn't ask the Fourth Hokage to seal the damn Kyuubi in me either!"
Tears stung his eyes as Naruto nearly spat the last words, years of isolation and abuse gathering and spilling loose into that one spiteful sentence. Next to him he could see Sasuke recoil in shock, making a choked noise that might be a gasp, but Naruto paid him no mind. He focused solely on Gamabunta, his teeth grinding painfully as he willed himself to calm down.
"I can't beat him, even with this stupid fox inside me," he continued, his voice bordering on a growl, "but you can at least get him over to the place so we can take him down. And that's why..." He trailed off, sucking in a deep breath before dipping into a deep bow. "Please, just help me out! You can yell at me all you want later—hell, I'll tape it and play it in my room for five days straight if you want me to! But right now I just need you to do this one thing. I can't let anyone else get hurt because of Gaara."
And I can't let Gaara suffer anymore, either.
"Please," he choked out, his voice rough and scratchy.
A small intake of breath sounded next to him, Sasuke whispering something under his breath he couldn't hear, but still Naruto remained bowed, waiting for Gamabunta's response. A heavy silence fell over the clearing, time seeming to tick by ever so slowly. Finally though, after what seemed like an eternity, he heard the great toad huff a large sigh.
"Where to?" he questioned, and Naruto snapped his head up in surprise, his eyes wide.
"W-what?"
"Where to?" Gamabunta repeated. "You said there's a place I need to get him, right?" Naruto's eyes grew wider and his face lit up in a grin, bobbing his head eagerly.
"Yeah!" He quickly leaped back onto Gamabunta's head, whirling around to survey the surrounding forest before pointing at a tall tree which loomed less than a mile away. It stood in sharp contrast to the rest of the forest as one half of it had lost its leaves, the jagged branches stark and bare, while the other half was lush with thick foliage. "There! See that tall tree, the one that's half dead? That's where you need to go!"
"Interesting," Gamabunta rumbled, smirking at the tree with a speculative gleam in his eye. "Brat, you might wanna get off my head while I handle this. This is gonna be messy."
"Got it, Gamabunta! Thanks!" Naruto grinned as he quickly descended down the toad's side, sliding down his front leg before flipping onto the ground. Sasuke followed in short order, landing next to him and looking at him with a strange, intense look that made Naruto wince.
"Naruto," he started, and hesitated. "I—" He cut himself off with a shout as Gamabunta suddenly sprung towards Gaara, the force of his leap shaking the earth and sending the two genin tumbling to the ground. An inhuman roar echoed from the tanuki as he collided into it, but Gamabunta just bellowed back with a resounding croak as he pushed it away. Trees snapped and fell like twigs as the two giants wrestled, cutting a path of destruction through the forest as the toad pushed the tanuki towards the tree Naruto indicated.
Naruto and Sasuke just listened idly from their spots on the ground as the battle moved away, the exhaustion from the near nonstop running finally catching up to them. Their muscles felt sore and protested the mere thought of getting up, and for once they decided to just give in to their tiredness, mainly because they knew they couldn't really do anything else at this particular moment.
Now that the initial adrenaline had worn off, Naruto dreaded how Sasuke would react to his big reveal during his monologue. Of all the people to find out first, Sasuke had not been at the top of the list. Would he tell Masaru and Sakura? Would they all call him a demon and hate him too? Or maybe—
"...What is Nine Ro, anyway?" Sasuke mumbled tiredly and Naruto flinched, rolling his head to stare at his teammate in shock.
"What—I just admitted I have a freaking fox sealed inside me, and that's what you want to ask!?" he sputtered in disbelief. Not that he was complaining, but... Seriously!? Sasuke just grunted, lazily shrugging his shoulders.
"Do you want me to ask about that?" he deadpanned, and Naruto opened his mouth to snap back with a witty retort before stopping. No, no he did not. When it became clear he wouldn't respond, Sasuke continued, "I just found out jinchuuriki are a thing, one of my teammates is one with the goddamn kyuubi sealed inside him, and—" Sasuke abruptly stopped and his face scrunched up in pain, making Naruto's stomach sink.
"S-Sasuke?" he whispered, dreading what could be going through his mind.
"...He wasn't lying, was he?" Sasuke whispered and Naruto frowned, squinting at his teammate in confusion.
"About what?"
"...What he said to Masaru." His words took a second to register, and then comprehension suddenly settled in. Oh.
Oh.
He remembered Sasuke had run a bit ahead of the group too at one point, so he must have overheard the stuff Gaara ranted about Masaru's mom cutting off Akari's head too. That... Naruto didn't even want to think about that. He knew that something bad went down with the Uchiha clan, even if he didn't know the full details, but that? That was just too messed up.
"I don't know," he replied honestly. "But, Masaru said his mom wouldn't do that, right? And he knows her better than us. So I guess I'll just trust him for now!" He offered Sasuke a bright grin, trying to reassure him even as doubt swirled inside him. The way Kakashi-sensei reacted to hearing Gaara got Akari's file, well, even Naruto could tell there was something really bad. Still, he didn't let his worry show, and just plastered on the most confident smile he could muster.
Sasuke stared at him for a long moment before rolling his head to look at the sky, his face blank and tired. "...This is officially one of the worst days of my life," he declared flatly, and Naruto's smile fell as he sighed.
"Tell me about it," he grumbled, and the two fell silent.
Crashing through the trees, Kakashi felt indescribable relief at seeing Temari and Kankurou already in place atop two of the dirt mounds, saving him some of the trouble. Several of the ninken instantly flocked to his side, sniffing at Masaru worriedly. "Boss, what happened?" Pakkun questioned. Kakashi grunted, already carefully shifting the unconscious boy onto Bull's back.
"No time for details, but Masaru passed out from chakra exhaustion. Bull, Pakkun, get him somewhere safe." Ideally, he should probably move Masaru a bit further away and get an expert to look at the seal on his neck ASAP, but right now he had bigger issues at hand. Bigger meaning a giant sand tanuki due to barrel their direction any moment. Time was simply not on his side right now.
"Got it, boss!" Pakkun affirmed with a nod, and the two took off deeper into the forest, Masaru securely draped over Bull's back.
"So Gaara didn't crush him?" Kankurou asked as the dogs departed, sounding almost wondrous at the thought of someone escaping an encounter with his brother physically unscathed. Kakashi shot him an unimpressed look but nodded curtly.
"No, he didn't," he confirmed flatly, and turned to greet his female student as she finally caught up, her face red and her breathing ragged as she halted next to him. She clearly looked physically exhausted, but given he'd been running close to his actual full speed Kakashi didn't count it against her. Genin simply lacked the stamina and speed to keep up with a full-fledged jounin.
Placing his hands on her shoulders, he quickly steered her into the clearing towards one of the mounds. "Sakura, take position on the mound over... here." He released his grip once she stood in place, and quickly jumped back to land atop the last mound before turning to face the trio of genin. "I'm going to show you the hand seals we'll need to use. Watch closely, it doesn't use traditional hand seals so they'll probably be unfamiliar."
"You know, you don't have the right to order us around," the puppeteer—Kankurou, if he recalled—growled irritably, but nonetheless he still raised his hands to mimic the sequence. Kakashi performed it slowly, watching closely as the three genin copied it, and thankfully they managed to get it down pretty fast.
"What does Nine-Ro even do?" Sakura asked as he checked her hands to make sure they had the proper posturing. Her voice took on a note of desperation and curiosity, and the two Sand ninja flashed him silent looks conveying similar sentiments.
"We don't have enough time for a full explanation, but to sum it up, it's a seal array meant to suppress jinchuuriki if the seals are ever compromised." he told them carefully. "The exact mechanics behind it are a bit... complicated."
A loud series of crashes interrupted him before he could continue, and all of them turned to watch as birds flew away above the tree line. A moment later Tenzo barreled into the clearing, his lips pulled into a grim frown. "They're on their way," he warned, and Kakashi nodded before turning to the apprehensive genin.
"We're out of time," he declared gravely. "Looks like we'll have to settle for a practical demonstration instead."
