Author's notes: Okay, so, like Tsume, I dislike numbers. trying to figure out how fast the average human body falls was an exercise in frustration. I finally made my husband calculate this out. That being said, it's still not quite right, maybe, but hey, at least my math wasn't as bad the four minutes it takes for a planet to blow in DBZ.
My father broke every bone in his hand, twice. He didn't realize that he did so the first time ("Well, I just knew that my hand hurt for a long time after your uncle accidentally smashed it with a mallet,"), until he had to get his hand x-rayed after a horse stomped on it after throwing my dad. Therefore, I dedicate this chapter to him! (I'm not sure he would consider this the dubious honor that it is.)
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Her temporary teammates told her it would be the highest point of their journey, and that it wasn't uncommon for the path to be shrouded by the cloudbanks. Tsume had never been up so high before to learn, first hand, what the inside of a cloud was like. She found it uncomfortably damp, exceedingly chilly, and muffled in scent and sound. They followed a small path that had been carved through the shale, with thick ropes secured to spikes deeply imbedded in the side of the mountain for travelers to hold on to, especially if footing was slick from ice or snow, or the wind was strong.
"This," Killer B waved his hand to indicate the white space of air just beyond where the mountain sheered away into a steep cliff, "is actually part of the Great Gorge. It's more than two and a half kilometers deep. Don't fall off. There's a river at the bottom, but its levels would be low this time of year, so you'll splatter all over the rocks if you accidentally fall off and when you inevitably hit the ground."
"Not that you would survive hitting the water from this height anyway," Darui added.
Killer B continued on, blithely. "Legend has it that the Great Gorge was created during the fight between the Sage of Six Paths and the Juubi – eventually, the Sage managed to stun the Juubi enough to subdue and seal it within himself."
Tsume tried to imagine a cliff more than twenty-five hundred meters deep. Her brain couldn't comprehend that much distance in a horizontal line, much less a vertical line. The number was simply too big.
"Be grateful it isn't windy," Karui said from behind Tsume. Karui stank of nervous fear and stale sweat. The stench worsened every time she glanced towards the white expanse, and her grip on the rope was white-knuckled. She hadn't been like this before when they stood on the precipice of other ravines and cliffs. Tsume didn't know if the fear was from not being able to see all the way down, or because the view would otherwise be much more overwhelming than the other ravines and cliffs. "It can be so ferocious at times that you'd get blown off no matter how hard you tried to stick with chakra." Her grip tightened even more as her words trailed off.
"The shale would break anyway from the applied force of chakra," Darui put in. He was at the front of the team. Despite being close, his voice was muffled and his body was partially obscured by the thick clouds. "This way isn't usually traveled during the winter, but the other option would increase the length of your trip another two days."
"The sight is breathtaking in the summer," Killer B said. He sounded wistful.
"Sure, if there aren't any clouds hanging around," Karui added, barely able to disguise the whimper that followed when a gust of wind shook them.
Tsume felt oddly closed in as they walked the path. It was too treacherous to run, so their pace was slow and careful. Frost covered her fur-lined hood, and she felt ice crystals forming on her eyelashes. This high up, it was difficult to breath, and she often found herself dizzy and gasping for air like a fish out of water. Scents were as muffled as sound, but she couldn't shake the feeling that eyes were watching. The surroundings cloudbank reminded her too much of Kiri nin and their assassination techniques. If Tsume was going to ambush anyone, this would be the perfect place and time for it. And while she knew she shouldn't really trust these Kumo nin any more than she could dropkick them off the side of the mountain, Tsume knew that the devil she was with was much more preferable to the devil she smelled lurking in the clouds.
With each careful step, Tsume slowly increased her olfaction sensitivity. At thirty percent, she quickened her pace, hand over hand with the rope, until she was just behind Killer B. His back was tense but he didn't change his pace or turn towards her when Tsume pressed the flat of her hand against the small of his back and increased her hearing. "We're not alone," she whispered.
"I know." Killer B didn't sound concerned. Even with the increased chakra in her ears, she couldn't hear much more than she already had before.
Tsume dropped her hand. The trail was barely a meter wide from the side of the cliff that towered above them, to the edge that dropped off abruptly into the vast white nothingness. "There's eighteen of them and only four of us. They're flying just above. I can smell the feathers of their wings, and they're preparing to attack."
Killer B's foot faltered briefly, and his scent flared with surprise.
Tsume didn't know if Killer B's surprise was due to how he hadn't known the exact numbers, or because of the other details she provided. For the good of Konoha, Tsume knew she couldn't reveal the extent of her abilities, but she had to be able to do something given her reputation as an Inuzuka tracker. It was always hard to remember where that fine line between what was expected as an exceptional tracker, and what was amazingly impossible. "They smell malicious." They weren't yet moving in for the attack, but Tsume could sense it about to happen – like tilting the head back to see the entire length of the tidal wave just about to crash down.
Darui had fallen back as soon as Tsume began talking. "Killer B – this is the worst place to get into a fight."
"Indeed." Killer B stepped sideways, closer to the downward edge, and gestured at Karui. The edge crumbled slightly beneath his feet, causing shards of shale to break loose. "Get ahead of me," he ordered firmly. Karui squeezed past Tsume and slid under Killer B's thick arm. Tsume could hear Karui's pounding heart. "You, as well. This wouldn't be your fight, Konoha kunoichi. The less you're involved, the more we can assure your safety and our treaty."
Tsume ducked under the arm. She was wider than Karui, and she had to squeeze sideways past Killer B. The edge of the trail crumbled away from his feet again and fell downward through the white expanse.
"Keep moving ahead," he told Darui. "I'm going to fall back and deal with them."
"You sure?"
"It's the Yozora clan." At the mention of who was lurking in the clouds, Darui's adrenaline spiked, and Karui's pores flooded with fresh fear. "I'm quite sure. Go, now."
Killer B pressed his back flat against the cliff, looping one hand around the rope as he withdrew his sword from its scabbard; the scraping metallic sound was almost nonexistent in the clouds. Darui urged Tsume and Karui forward.
A trembling seized Karui's arms, and her feet stumbled as she struggled to keep up with Darui's greater speed. Tsume turned her head as she smelled a spark of fire chakra, and jumped forward, forcing Karui's head down. "Duck!" Tsume shielded Karui as the blast tags exploded behind her. She felt the singe of heat and the pelting thuds as exploded shale struck her knapsack. Killer B's chakra flared, searing hot in its strength. Tsume twisted around to look over her shoulder and only saw a swarm of shadows. One of the shadows shot upwards with the sound of splintering bones. She smelled blood, rage, and delight.
"Hurry!" Darui's voice was a hiss that carried low and far. She reluctantly turned away from where Killer B was fighting, wishing that the clouds wouldn't obstruct her view of what was going on. The one time I get to see Killer B fight without it being against Konoha, and I don't get to see a thing!
"Come on, Karui." Tsume pushed gently against Karui's back. Karui shrieked and curled into a ball.
"I can't!" Karui's hands trembled so hard that they were clenched around the rope. "I can't m-move!"
Okay, now was a really bad time for people to have a bad case of nerves. Tsume gritted her teeth, and tried to pry Karui's hands loose. "Let me help you, then."
Karui shrieked as anger momentarily overlapped fear. "D-don't touch me!"
"Then move!" Tsume pushed away from Karui and whirled around, rocking upright. She brought a kunai up in time to block the downward blow from a wickedly-curved scimitar. Metal clanged and her entire arm ached from the vibrations, as she caught the brief appearance of a long, narrow face and eyes that were a solid brown – no white sclera, no black pupil. Then a gigantic flap of the wings – covered in dark brown and tan-flecked feathers – allowed the shinobi to abruptly reverse in midair and disappear into the cloudbank.
The ground shook with a gigantic crash, which was almost immediately followed by a deafening roar and a wave of fiery chakra that made the hair on the back of Tsume's arms stand on end. The edge of the trail crumbled away as Tsume grasped the rope. She pulled her dangling legs back beneath her, and yanked her hood down so her peripheral vision wasn't obstructed. The frigid air struck her like a slap to the ears. She turned back to Karui.
Karui had managed to stand half-way, but she was sobbing quietly, hands still tightly clenching the rope. Darui stood across from her – the trail between them had broken away, leaving a large sheered gap between. "You can do it," Darui urged quietly, beckoning with one hand as he kept the other hand firmly clamped on the rope; the imbedded spikes were still intact, and the rope dangled in the open space. "Just like you practiced at home. I'll be here to catch you, Karui - I won't let you slip like last time."
Karui's legs collapsed beneath her. Crying, she pressed her face against one shoulder. "I c-can't! I can't!"
Tsume wondered how much trouble she'd be in if she just picked Karui up by the scruff of her neck and tossed her to Darui. Some judiciously applied chakra would get Karui over the gap easily enough.
There was no time to follow up on this idea – Tsume blocked another vicious aerial attack, and then kicked the attacking shinobi in the stomach before he could backpedal. The force of her chakra-enhanced kick sent the shinobi away in an uncontrolled arc, crashing into another diving shinobi. Two blocks with her kunai, and her arm was starting to ache severely. The attackers had the advantage, using a combination of strength and gravity against her. The clouds on the opposite side of Tsume boiled angrily as a storm of tailed-demon chakra was unleashed. Tsume ducked another attack, sliding beneath the scimitar blade so she could swipe at the attacker's belly. The shinobi barrel-rolled in midair from her kunai, receiving nothing more than a shallow scratch.
"Damn it!" she yelled as the shinobi disappeared once more. "Hold still so I can kill you already!" A piece of shale struck the top of her head. She thrust the kunai upward as she dropped down, and felt the blade sink into soft flesh before striking hard bone. Blood showered as a dead body collapsed on her. The wings were heavier than expected, and the feathers tasted like what an eagle smelled as Tsume struggled to throw the body off and accidentally got as mouthful of feathers at the same time. The body slid half-way off before it somehow got caught on the buckles of her knapsack.
Karui shrieked as another attacker grabbed and pulled her off the trail, dangling her in the air. Darui threw a kunai, but the attacker easily dodged. Karui clawed the arms that held her and then bit an exposed wrist. The shinobi backhanded Karui with his other hand.
A gigantic thing shot out of the dark and slammed into the shinobi. Obscured by the clouds and vision still partially obstructed by feathers, the object looked like an octopus's limb, except it was wrapped with Hachibi's chakra, glowing and crackling like lightning chakra. The flying shinobi couldn't block the limb as he was struck, and Karui fell from his grasp. Karui didn't even scream as the clouds swallowed her, but Darui did, even as he wrestled with his own attacker.
"KARUI! B! KARUI IS OVER THE EDGE!"
The octopus limb immediately dipped downward, disappearing through the clouds, pawing and searching. Killer B roared with frustration and fear, and the mountain shook once more.
Tsume slipped out of her knapsack and shrugged the dead body off. "I'll get Karui!" she yelled, and ran down off the cliff just as another attacker flew in and started hacking at the octopus limb. Her hair brushed close and she felt the spikiest ends sizzle and melt when it came into contact with the Hachibi's chakra. "Hey – get out of my way!" The limb adjusted slightly, moving out of reach.
It was a weird sensation, shunshinning downward and forcing herself to drop faster than freefall via gravity. If she held her face just right, she couldn't draw in any air, so she tried to keep her face angled low. Colors darted in her vision as shattered shale flew from beneath her feet – it was hard to judge through the thick soles of her boots exactly what she needed to stick to the fragile surface. It was difficult to concentrate – too much chakra would propel her off the side, and she was still trying to pay attention to what her nose was able to tell her when she remembered that breathing through her mouth didn't do much for olfaction.
Tsume tried to figure how fast it would take to reach the bottom of a twenty-five hundred meter ravine, wondered if she could catch Karui before that could happen. Oh gosh – this was the worst time ever to have the world's worst math skills!
She pushed more chakra into her nose and took a deep breath in through her nose before panting desperately like a dog in heat – Karui smelled of shock and fear. The attackers – fourteen still alive – mostly concentrated on swarming Killer B and Darui. Karui had been dropped at least three meters away from the cliff's side. Unless it slanted outward somehow, Tsume could be right beside Karui and still not reach her. Actually, it felt like the cliff was slanting inward.
The clouds remained unbroken. The cold air stung her throat. Her ears also felt cold, and the blood was starting to freeze in her hair.
She saw a dark blot in the clouds just below her – could smell Karui so close that she could maybe touch her, but she knew that she still wouldn't be able to reach. Tsume stretched her hand out as Karui's obscured form entered her vision. "Can you grab hold?" she yelled. Karui's body was limp, and her open eyes didn't blink or shift at the sound of Tsume's voice.
Tsume's foot slipped and she felt herself propelling off the wall. She twisted in midair and somersaulted backwards, grasping at the cliff's side with her hands so she wouldn't be stranded in the air. Chakra flared – too much, too condensed in the surface of her hands – and she smelled burnt flesh as she skidded to a halt. The dark blot that was Karui disappeared, but several large ones still clustered in her vision. Tsume ripped her gloves off and ignored the chakra burns on the palms of her hands. She unwound Kokoro's brightly colored scarf from her neck, a little sad to see that blood stained sections of it. She wrapped one end tightly around her left wrist, using her other hand and teeth to tighten it securely.
Thank the Sage that Kokoro always believed that was more was better whenever she knitted. There was a good three meters of length – if Tsume stretched her body and arm, it would be possible to swing the scarf like a whip and snag Karui. Tsume yanked off her bulky boots but left her socks on. She could feel the fragile stone beneath her feet better without the interference from the thick soles. After tying the other end of the scarf in a loop, Tsume shunshinned down the cliff, once more picking up a harrowing level of speed. The clouds had begun to thin as Tsume came up to Karui's limp body. She edged lower and snapped the scarf out. The edge brushed Karui's hair before falling loose.
Cursing mentally since she didn't have the air to do so verbally, Tsume forced chakra into the length of her arm, and through the unresponsive woolen fibers. She had never been able to duplicate Kokoro or Sasori's beautiful spider web-fine chakra strings, but all she needed was something that could stick. With the scarf drenched in her chakra, Tsume threw it out again. She lost her footing on the cliff and spun head over heels through the air. Tsume twisted her torso in the opposite direction of the spin and straightened upright. Karui's hair brushed her own.
"All right!" Tsume snagged Karui and tugged her close. Karui was still limp with shock, barely breathing, as Tsume suddenly realized that she was beyond making contact with the cliff. "Damn it!" She dropped the loop around Karui's shoulders before tightening it beneath Karui's arms. She double-checked the security of the scarf tied around her wrist, and then wrapped an arm around Karui's middle. Karui's body radiated warmth against her frozen skin. As they plummeted through the thinning white, it seemed like they were in a different dimension. Tsume's thoughts felt like they were slowing down as the adrenaline seemed to be seeping away. She still couldn't see the bottom of the ravine, and couldn't see the trail far above where she had jumped off.
A thought, fueled by her intense dislike for all things concerning numbers, jumpstarted her adrenaline: how much time do I have left before we hit the bottom?
Tsume spun her feet in the air, causing both kunoichi to cartwheel in mid-air. Okay, so shunshinning wasn't going to work without a solid surface. She kinda knew that already. I have to spin over there. It'll be just like doing the Fang Passing Fang. Tsume had made several successful attempts at launching into one of her clan's aerial attacks while in mid-air – this should be no different.
I can do this. Tsume gathered Karui into her arms, and spiked chakra into the left side of her body as she launched into a spin. It took a dizzy moment – longer than normal – to obtain traction and momentum in the direction she wanted to go. They smashed into the cliff, red shale exploding all around before Tsume brought them out of the spin, still free-falling. Tsume planted her bare hands against the uneven surface, chakra flaring against the burned flesh. Trying not to overdue it, Tsume initially didn't apply enough chakra. Flesh shredded and she left two bloody hand trails down the cliff's side before she managed to apply the correct amount to bring them to a sudden halt. Against her hands, she felt the entire cliff vibrate and buckle as a great force slammed into it. She was pretty sure most of the trembling was the cliff – maybe just a little was in her limbs.
Tsume rested her forehead against the frozen stone and tried to catch her breath as Karui's weight dragged at her left arm. She transferred most of the weight to her feet, which felt a little cold but were otherwise fine in her wool socks. Her head spun even though the world seemed to settle down.
There was a whimper just below Tsume. "Wh-what are you doing?!" The last word was pitched into a screech.
Tsume pulled her head from the cliff and glanced over her shoulder. "Coming out of your shock yet?" She paused to breathe some more. Some of the swimming colors in her eyes seemed to improve. "Hey, do Kumo nin know how to use chakra to climb?"
Karui dangled from the scarf, eyes wide and face ashen beneath the dark skin. "Y-you saved me." Tears brimmed in her eyes. "Why did…"
"Because someone had to, and we're kinda stuck together, so I figured, why not." Tsume took stock of her surroundings. The clouds were definitely thinning now, and she thought she saw a distant ribbon of blue far below – the river that Darui had told her would be at its lowest point. She still couldn't tell how much more distance they needed to go before reaching the bottom, but that looked closer and easier to reach than trying to head upward to where Darui and Killer B would be. She also didn't want to get closer to an ongoing aerial fight.
Tsume released her right hand so she could lean further back. She increased the chakra at her eyes, sharpening her vision so she could better estimate how much further down, and ignored the small bits of shale that rained down on them, undoubtedly knocked loose from the vibrating blow she had felt earlier. The drop looked to be about five hundred meters, possibly more. A bolt of adrenaline charged up and down her spine as Tsume realized how far they had fallen. She felt strangely discombobulated – like it should've taken more time to fall so far as they had, and yet it had seemed to take forever to rescue Karui.
Okay, her body was feeling kind of weird from the free fall and the altitude – was it better to go up, or to go down? "You didn't answer my question. Can you chakra climb this cliff? Because if you can't, I think we're going to have to climb down." It would be a lot easier than Tsume manhandling Karui upward.
Karui clawed at the scarf. "Look out!" she screamed, her eyes widening.
Tsume instantly shifted chakra from her eyes to her nose as she shifted positions, hugging the cliff and looking upright. Something dark was plummeting through the clouds – stone, not enemy. No time to dodge or think, only react. She raised her right hand, pouring chakra into it as a shield. It wasn't enough – the gigantic boulder smashed into her arm just as Tsume realized that she had severely underestimated the side of the boulder. The boulder shattered into smaller pieces around her as the shockwave of pain hit.
Her right arm flopped uselessly at her side as white washed through her vision. She felt her feet and left hand slide down the cliff as her chakra stuttered, trying to maintain the grip, but too distracted from the overwhelming agony.
"Are you all right? Inuzuka-san?" Karui was crying again as she swayed from the scarf. "L-let me help."
Tsume released her chakra grip. Karui screamed as they plummeted downward. Black and white with flecks of red flashed through Tsume's vision as she struggled to stay conscious. Karui climbed the scarf hand-over-hand until she was able to grab Tsume, clinging with both arms and legs to Tsume's torso.
"Control the spin," Tsume whispered. Just like with Kuromaru, her mind whispered.
("Control is paramount. Yes, a kunoichi can give over to the rage, to the fear, but she must control the rage and the fear. You cannot allow it to control you, even if you are incapable of fear. Do not be overcome even by amusement or love or pain."
"Uh, okay, Danzo-sensei.")
Tsume spun Karui one-handed until the Kumo kunoichi's waist was wrapped in the scarf, and tugged her close, chest to chest. Their spin flipped them upside down in the air and Tsume watched the ground approach closer through her multicolored vision. "Count backwards to one," she whispered against Karui's ear. "C-count with me. Fifteen, fourteen, thir-thirteen…" She went with her instincts of how long it would take to hit the bottom, and hoped instinct would serve better than her math skills.
Karui obeyed as her voice stuttered. "Twelve." She sobbed. "El-eleven. Ten."
Everything went black for a moment, and even the pain retreated into nothingness. When her vision returned, Karui clung so hard that Tsume could barely breathe through the pain that throbbed through her entire ribcage. "TWO. O-ONE." Then she screamed.
Tsume spun them and punched her chakra-wrapped left hand into the cliff, claws digging as she desperately tried to slow their assent before striking the ground. Their bodies smashed against the side of the cliff, and Karui shrieked in fear again as Tsume flipped them around, and shunshinned upward, shale shattering beneath her feet. Tsume's stomach swam as much as her vision did from the abrupt change in momentum. They floated for a brief second, caught between going up and coming down as her feet scrambled against the stone but couldn't find purchase without chakra.
"Heading down again," Tsume warned Karui. She tucked and rolled them, landing feet first without any further injury. Oh, the ground was much closer than she had thought… Tsume's legs instantly collapsed beneath her as everything went white again for a brief moment. She became all too aware of the rounded river stones digging into her backside, and the large pieces of shattered boulder that had hit the ground just before they did. She was also acutely aware of her olfaction warning her of incoming danger.
Karui squeezed and shook Tsume, her breaths quick and harsh. "How did… are you okay?"
Tsume unzipped her coat with her left hand so she could reach her modest cleavage, and used her teeth to unknot Kokoro's scarf from around her wrist. Then she forced herself to stand upright as three shinobi fluttered down and perched on other boulders not too far away. She made sure to stand between them and Karui, shielding the young teenager.
"You are not a Kumo kunoichi," the middle said. He was the tallest of the three, fresh bruises blossoming across his bare chest. All three wore fur-covered pants, and their bare chests were crisscrossed by a leather harness. Their skin was covered with a light tan-colored down – or perhaps it was fur. She couldn't tell from this distance, and her nose wasn't really saying much except they smelled of deceit and hatred. As Tsume forced her vision to focus on all three of the Yozora nin and made herself breathe through her nose, the middle flared his wings wide in deliberate intimidation. Karui's voice hitched in a wordless sob and her scent flooded with a new wave of terror. Tsume always wondered what it was like to fly.
Tsume was glad that her heavy winter coat hid her injured right arm, hanging loose and useless at her side. She straightened upward, head high and proud, all too aware of whose forehead protector she wore as an identity around her arm. "I am a Konoha kunoichi."
"Our fight is with the Kumo nin who have tried for several generations to invade our sacred territory and destroy our clan. If you give us the Kumo kunoichi, we will let you go free. Our fight is not with Konoha."
Tsume took stock of what she had – one working left arm (palm of hand burned and skinned raw, but otherwise still serviceable), enough summons to wipe out two small countries (Hither and Yon, which really wasn't much to brag about, Aunt Natsumi once told her), one teenaged chuunin whose fighting style was a complete unknown and who hadn't quite recovered from the combined shock and terror of their free fall, one dead Konoha shinobi tucked close to her heart, one sealed Amatsu stuffed between her breasts, 25% of her chakra stores, possible acute oxygen deprivation from the high altitudes, and a potent seal.
She'd taken on enemies with less, and walked away from those fights to live another day. If she couldn't handle three lousy ninja, Danzo would stick her back into remedial training, and she wanted to make a year this time of not having to do through such.
Tsume grinned and bared her teeth in challenge as she channeled chakra to her left hand, extending and enhancing her claws as she braced bones and joints. "It's true that there isn't any love between Konoha and Kumo, and I dare say that under any other circumstances, she'd be all yours. Except—" she activated her siren seal at full strength, feeling it burn deliciously as it awakened, blooming across her leg, pelvis, and torso, "—they are my companions for this mission. This kunoichi is my Kumo nin to protect. My sensei refused to ever leave behind a companion, and I will do no less than Hatake Sakumo!"
As the other shinobi froze, freezing when the seal snatched their mind and attention, Tsume shunshinned forward, left hand raised before her with fingers rigidly straight. She aimed high, eyes trained on the shinobi's throat, but he ducked backwards in the last moment, just as she figured he would. She moved even faster than he moved– the world burred around her as she focused her chakra into all her limbs – and then blood splattered as her hand struck through where he hadn't blocked. The shinobi's blood felt boiling hot as she curled her fingers around the pumping organ, and then she dashed backwards without releasing her grip, dropping the seal's strength by half. She was instantly in front of Karui, swaying only slightly. She raised her left hand in the air to reveal the heart clenched between her fingers, and bared her teeth again as the middle shinobi pitched over, dead, a hole in his chest where she had punched her hand through.
"You bitch!" The left shinobi withdrew the scimitar he had tucked away in his belt. He trembled, caught between desire and rage.
Tsume dropped the heart and stamped it flat with a chakra-enhanced heel. She felt the organ squish beneath her foot and soak her sock as her feral smile melted into something that was simpering and sweet. She fluttered her eyelashes at them – bedroom eyes a target had once called them. She trailed a bloody finger from the line of her jaw downward, over the hollow of her throat, and made a show of dipping her hand into her cleavage while raising the seal to full strength once again, like a cresting wave. The right shinobi's breath hitched as his pupils dilated. "I am Inuzuka. I am queen alpha bitch."
She launched forward with another attack, the storage scroll shredding as Amatsu was released. She flashed across the distance, again dropping the strength of the seal to fifty percent – the fluctuating strength of the siren's call long proved to make her male enemies dizzy and confused. She struck the scimitar raised to deflect her blow, and mighty Amatsu shattered the metal. Tsume spun around on her heel as the left shinobi stumbled backwards and the right leapt into the air, wings beating wildly. She cleaved the left shinobi's head off as the momentum from the spin jarred her right arm. The new throbbing wave of pain nearly brought Tsume to her knees. She forced herself to stay upright even when the world wavered. Damn it – she should've used some of her clan's soldier pills… Did she pack soldier pills? And why was her ax on the ground? It was right there in her hand… oh, maybe not.
By the time it occurred to Tsume that she still had one living enemy, a gigantic ox with eight octopus limbs hit the ground, making the countryside buckle and vibrate from the mighty crash. Water splashed from further away as debris from the demon's landing rained all about. Tsume toppled over, off-balanced and weak, but Karui caught and held her upright. Karui pressed her face against Tsume's back and cried softly, hands clenching at Tsume's coat. Her right arm felt like it was on fire, crushed, dipped in acid, and frozen all at once. It didn't burn nearly as nicely as her siren seal.
Tsume watched, distantly, as the Hachibi snapped his jaws and crushed the escaping shinobi in its teeth. Then it spat out the body, and swished its tails with a mighty roar. "KARUI!"
Tsume looked at where Amatsu lay on the ground, the wooden shaft covered in blood. She needed to clean it – blood shouldn't be left on the wood. She lifted her left hand and jabbed her thumb backwards. "Right here," she called. Her voice sounded distant, like it came through a funnel.
The Hachibi lowered its head with a gigantic huff that would've knocked Tsume off her feet without Karui bracing her upright. Her legs felt like they wanted to buckle, so she locked her knees. The look in its ancient eyes as the Hachibi studied her made the hair on the back of Tsume's arms stir – something sweet curled in the pit of her stomach, even though it also swam with pain and nausea. "You're hurt," the great voice rumbled. "But you're not… scared? How is this possible?" One octopus limb reached downward and uncurled. It deposited Darui safely on the ground, unscathed by the crackling chakra. Darui stumbled, trying to get his legs working once more. He clutched Tsume's bloodstained knapsack close to his chest.
"No." Tsume thought that the Hachibi was mighty impressive, even if there seemed to be a lot more tails/limbs that she had originally anticipated. Why an octopus for an oxen? They were totally different animals. And he smelled like he was interested in her. She hoped it wasn't because the blood made her seem tasty… and where did that extra head come from? Her vision split into two – the left side was higher than the right, skewing images like a broken mirror – as colors washed through in waves just like the throbbing pulses of pain. "Should I be?"
"Sensei, she's hurt!"
Darui was quickly at Tsume's side, helping Karui lower her to the uneven ground. Smoothed river rocks dug into Tsume's backside as Darui carefully extracted her right arm from its coat sleeve. "What did you do?" he asked, voice half-choked in dismay. His searching sweep of her hand became an unexpected lengthy caress. This close, Tsume could smell his desire. Oh come on, she was icky with blood and sweat, with bits of heart stuck under her fingernails and under the heel of her left foot, there was nothing seductive or sexy about her…
"Darui-san, why are you looking at Inuzuka-san like that?"
Tsume abruptly remembered that her seal was still powered at fifty percent. She struggled to tamper it down, to keep it from consuming the male minds – it clung, every bit as stubborn in its refusal to Tsume surrender utterly. She felt her head roll loosely toward her left shoulder. The Hachibi's chakra caused a sucking sensation on the atmosphere as Killer B released the form. Tsume was able to disguise her seal's change with the chakra-charged atmosphere, forcing the seal smaller and smaller until she finally gave in, allowing it to linger at a ten percent strength. Damn thing felt rather smug. You go right ahead on being smug. I'll just take you right to Jiraiya and have you fixed like a dog I don't want breeding!
Somewhere, Tsume hoped that Orochimaru choked to death on his own tongue.
Darui looked dazed as he studied her arm, and then shook his head, whispering kai to dispel what he thought was a genjutsu. "You…" She felt the wash of chakra over her arm. "Shit. You broke every single bone in your arm and pulverized everything in your hand! And what the hell did you do to your collarbone, shoulder blade, and ribcage? How did you manage to fight with this?"
Tsume laughed, and then stopped, because doing so made the pain worse. She was also just now realizing how much it hurt to breathe. Maybe she shouldn't breathe… "Again? Huh." She didn't remember hurting this much. Sounded like the damage was more extensive this time though.
Then Darui did something with his hands against her arm that made everything go senselessly white. When she came to, Killer B was crouching over her, one finger lightly resting against the tip of her nose. He had obtained a small laceration in the line of his hair at some point, which made a trail of fresh blood dribble from his hairline and drip onto his collarbone. She watched as the laceration slowly knit closed.
"Come here. I know that there's at least one of you who can get a message to the other Konoha nin for me," he said. Tsume crossed her eyes as a kikaichu, its feet tickling, crawled down her nose and lighted upon the tip of Killer B's finger. He raised the kikaichu to eyelevel. "Our return to Shikotan has been delayed by at least a week. It will take us another three days to get out of the Great Gorge. In the meantime, I will do everything in my power to protect Inuzuka-san, ensure top-notch medical care, and to bring her back alive and safe to her two young sons. This I swear upon my honor as the guardian and protector of Kumo."
Tsume thought she heard the remaining kikaichu in her hair buzz and click, before the one on Killer B's finger flew away.
She managed to stay mostly awake, drifting in and out of senselessness as Darui reduced the broken bones in her arm and hand. He made a special plaster from dried clay that Killer B pulverized into a fine powder beneath his large hands, and shaped a crude cast with driftwood that Karui scavenged up from the exposed riverbed.
"Talk to me," she told Killer B. He had disposed of the near-by bodies, and now sat close by, studying her with a curious expression with his eyes still hidden behind the sunglasses. Everything was washed in gray. The overhead clouds blocked the sun, the surrounding cliffs were muddied shades of pinkish-red and gray-beige, and even the water seemed dull up close. She couldn't tell what time it was, or how long it had been since she jumped off the cliff. There were little banks of snow all around the ravine floor, but she felt warm, and was pretty sure that it was because she was no longer hiking through a winter's cloudbank.
The heavy coat that Killer B had covered her after Darui had exposed her injuries for assessment and care also helped. Killer B didn't seem bothered by the winter's chill. "Tell me… why does Karui hate Konoha? Don'tcha know… Don'tcha know hibiscus tea with lemon? Hate, it… it makes you vulnerable, and Karui's hair is too nice, too red for her to be hateful." Kushina had never hated, after all. Kushina had loved. People with red hair always seemed so passionate, so bright and so full of life – they shouldn't fill their passion with hate.
Killer 's smile was fond and a little sad. "I think you're rambling. I've known a couple of redheads who were just boring and lackadaisical."
"Didn't know I was talking. Guess I am rambling. I'm trying not to think…" The pain was an invading throb that made her want to curl up in a corner and wallow in self-pity, layered with a burning sensation that she didn't remember the last time. She wondered how she was going to be able to carry her sons home – she thought of the riot act that Kuromaru would read her, and the stern lecture that Shikake would give – probably something about how if your best friend falls off a cliff, you shouldn't follow after, and the same holds true especially if it's one of your enemies that falls off a cliff. "Distract me, please?" Karui's head popped into Tsume's line of vision, so Tsume reached out with her left hand and touched the red hair. It felt like fine silk beneath her fingertips. Tsume found herself sniffling as an overwhelming sense of loss stole over her. Gosh – how long had it been since she and Mooncalf saved Kushina? It would've been on the other side of this mountain rage, where the timberline was clustered with boreal forests.
"We in Kumo say," Killer B affectionately ruffled Karui's hair, and for once, Karui didn't bat away his hand, "that the life you save becomes your own. In a sense, you assume responsibility for that life, because the original owner of such has nothing of greater value to repay you."
That sounded rather barbaric to Tsume, and totally confusing for the battlefield. Although that probably explained why Kumo rarely released its prisoners of war or other captured nin – apparently they liked holding on to people out of some sort of strange sense of responsibility.
Tsume had a sudden vision of Kumogakure tagging her ear and then releasing her back into her natural environment at the end of this mission. "I don't want her life. Got enough of my own. Got tons of children." She even had two brand new kid back at home whom she was currently sharing with Danzo. She thought it was a clever move on her part… he had never really wanted to involved with her other children before, especially Hana and Kiba.
"I don't want you to have my life either!" Karui shouted. "You took my father's before I was even born! You Konoha nin are nothing more than animals!"
Killer B's voice was sharp. "Karui! Sit down, now."
Karui sunk down. She had gone to fetch Amatsu, which she shoved to the side, glaring at the ax as if it were as much a Konoha nin as Tsume, and therefore just as worthy of her resentful belligerence. She pulled her knees up and hid behind them. "She tore that Yozora's heart out like his chest was made of paper, sensei, and then she stomped it beneath her foot and smiled." She rubbed her nose and sobbed. "My dad – you Konoha nin gutted him like a fish, and then ripped his spine out like it was nothing! He wasn't even allowed to die with dignity!"
Tsume looked at her hand as Darui completed her arm, and carefully inspected her fingers. They were twisted and swollen, already turning a solid shade of eggplant purple from extensive bruising. "Wow," Tsume said. She vividly remembered how her hand looked the last time it had been like this. That would've been fifteen years ago… about the same time that Karui's father died. After he had been, uh, disemboweled and deboned.
Well, gosh. Tsume suddenly found a whole new reason to want to curl up in a corner. She hadn't realized that this was going to come back and bite her in the butt.
Darui carefully straightened her curled fingers. "I know. Impressive, especially since I can tell that this isn't the first time you broke every bone in your hand before." Her fingers felt numb and distant, prickling like someone was pressing needles against her cold flesh; the true pain was in her arm, which now throbbed in staccato like a heartbeat, except the pulse of pain squeezed her entire body. Darui sent another cooling wash of chakra flooding up her arm. It eased some of the painful throbbing, but the relief seemed to stop cold at her shoulder – her ribcage still ached with every breath. But even easing a little bit of pain made it marginally easier for Tsume to think.
Tsume considered Karui as Karui buried her face in her kneecaps and sniffled. She wondered what it was like, trying to be brave after being so scared. She thought of Anko the first time that Tsume had seen her come out of the curse seal, huddled in a ball and crying, and wanted to hug Karui as much as she had wanted to hug Anko. "I'm sure your life is really nice and all, but I don't want it."
"I don't want you to have it either."
Killer B sighed. "It is what it is. You owe her a great debt, Karui-chan. I doubt anyone from Kumo would've jumped off a cliff after you—well, besides me. And maybe my brother, for you are his kunoichi, and a good leader should always try assisting his subordinates in their dire need. Inuzuka-san is a very brave woman."
No… that definitely couldn't be right. No one had ever said she was brave before. "You have to be afraid in order to be brave, don't you?" Tsume asked Killer B. "I can't… I don't have the amygdala cells to produce fear. That's what Tsunade-hime said when Grandmother found me in the forest. What I did wasn't brave." The brain damage was too extensive, they said. She would always be stupid and reckless, they said. ("Worthless meat shield!")
"But," Killer B said, undeterred by Tsume's information, "your reckless stupidity wasn't calculated. It was done at a whim, which means that your heart is good and true, and whoever called you a worthless meat shield was a fool. In my lifetime, I have learned that it isn't our well-thought apologies that reveal who a person truly is, but the moments in which we react without reason. The immediate reaction of a selfish person wouldn't be to jump off a cliff for someone who is ordinarily their enemy." He turned to Karui, and announced very firmly, "She'll hold your life with honor."
"Damn the honor!" Karui screamed, fingers digging into her kneecaps. She rocked with her face scrunched in stubborn anger as Killer B frowned. "Honor didn't bring back my father, now did it? Honor left my mother barefoot and pregnant, and then later trying to raise me in a leaky basement because we didn't have anything!"
"That's the thing," Tsume said. "There is no honor in war. But… but I think that Kumo has another saying, a holdover from the Third Shinobi War. There is no shame in saying your loved one was killed by the Yellow Flash, right?"
Or was it Iwa that used to say that? She couldn't remember.
"That was us," Killer A replied. "Iwa just said that the only good Yellow Flash was a dead Yellow Flash – no sense of admiration or respect for decent warriors. Figures, since they also went around poisoning Wind's oases." Killer A's scent colored with admiration as he spoke of Minato, although his voice was disdainful as he talked about Iwa. "We in Kumo say there is no shame in knowing you couldn't outrun the Yellow Flash."
Tsume leaned forward so she could lightly rest her left hand on Karui's. She briefly thought that she needed to scrub organ tissue from beneath her claws. "Karui, there is no shame in saying that your father was killed in battle by Namikaze Minato, and not because he ran, either."
Karui's eyes teared up. "How would you know? Nobody knows who killed my dad, except that it was Konoha nin."
Tsume was pretty sure that she was revealing old secrets, but didn't think that it qualified as S class Intel anymore. "Because I was there, Karui." Besides, it would make her appear that much less threatening, especially after the whole 2500 meter dive off a cliff thing. Not that her broken body made her appear intimidating, at the moment. "Uzumaki Kushina was my best friend and my genin teammate, so me and D-, uh, someone and Minato were all involved in tracking down Kushina-chan and rescuing her after Kumo kidnapped her." Tsume kept her gaze – blurry and still shattered in two – trained upon Karui, who seemed to shrink further down the more Tsume spoke. She felt Killer B's attention keenly – smelled his surprise and wariness as she spoke – and knew that Darui also had to be listening as he continued to straighten and plaster her fingers.
"Your father was just one of several who died, but he was also the one who stood the longest and fought the hardest. You should be very proud of him." Tsume figured it was okay to pad the details of a fifteen year old memory that was dim and confused from so many things happening all at once, especially when she passed out so soon afterward from chakra exhaustion. "He was strong, had amazing stamina, and never complained about the pain. He was still fighting even after Minato gutted him, and he's the only shinobi I've ever seen continue to the very end like that. It took accidentally ripping out his spine before he stopped."
Killer B's voice was a low rumble. "Accidentally?" Tsume felt the rumble in the earth just below her, like the warning before an earthquake.
Tsume turned her gaze to Killer B. His face was dark and unreadable, his scent carefully still, as if he were trying to guard against her nose. "I was twelve years old. My control was kinda dodgy, okay? I didn't… I didn't mean to kill him, not really. I just…" It was hard to recall what exactly when through her mind at that moment. All Tsume could remember at the time was that she wasn't a worthless meat shield, and also there was too much blood on her sheets, except that had to be wrong, because Danzo had more-or-less hauled her all over the country and they didn't have a bedroll, much less sheets. Her hand slid limply from Karui's knee, and tried not to cry. "I just wanted to help Mooncalf, because the other guy seemed to be winning, and I used way too much chakra. I didn't even know what I was doing. So, see, I owed you a life, Karui, even if I didn't know it. I think… I think we're even now."
Karui abruptly jumped to her feet and stomped away, furiously swiping at her eyes. Killer B watched her go.
"Is she going to be all right?" Darui asked Killer B softly.
"She needs to have some time to herself," Killer B replied as he glanced after his apprentice. "How's this one coming along?" He indicated Tsume, which she thought was rather rude, because she was right there.
Darui brushed sweat away from his forehead with the back of his arm, smearing on a streak of rock paste. "As well as can be expected, given my limited repertoire in healing techniques and the extensive damage. If I keep applying steady maintenance as we go and we get our best medics on the job as soon as we arrive to Kumo, I think it's safe to say that Tsume can keep the use of her limb… although she will wind up feeling every tiny change of weather acutely."
"Already do."
Darui gave Tsume a tired smile. "So, exactly how did you manage to break everything in your arm and hand this time?"
"I had just caught Karui. She was looking up, I was looking down, and she warned me about something that was coming at us." Tsume shifted, trying to get comfortable on the ground. Her knapsack cushioned her back against the boulder she was leaning against, but there was nothing to protect her from the various rocks digging into her butt and legs. "I raised my arm to block, but I couldn't see the boulder through the clouds – I underestimated its size. Gosh, it was… it was really, really big." She wanted to say that the boulder had been about the size of a freaking house, but she wasn't sure if her memory of it wasn't exaggerated from the excitement of the moment.
Killer B regarded Tsume for a long moment, before he reached over and picked up her ax. Amatsu was always just a little too big for Tsume to use gracefully, but that had never stopped Aunt Natsumi from giving it to her. ("So you just have to put a little more strength into using it. An ax isn't meant to be an elegant weapon – Inuzuka women aren't known for our grace and beauty. It's not like we're a clan of swans, although we're every bit as deadly.") In Killer B's hands, the ax seemed small enough to be an awkward toy.
"You said you couldn't feel fear."
"No. The cells responsible for producing fear were destroyed in an injury when I was just six. I never got that part of me back." Her brain injury had never been a secret from anyone who had half a sense to get some level of Intel on Konoha, but the involvement of Uchiha Madara was something that those who did know could barely believe.
"Ah. Well, so much of your Bingo Book entry and dossier is explained." Killer B's smile was wry as he took a rag, wet it down with the water that Darui had left over from creating the paste, and began gently cleaning Amatsu. Tsume sniffed as she watched him, feeling a pleasant warmth settle in the pit of her stomach as she watched him handle the ancient weapon with respect. "I once ran away from Inuzuka Natsumi. Kumo doesn't remember her the way that we remember Minato – the memories of the Hell Hounds aren't as fresh – but I feel that there is no shame in saying I survived her and her gouka inugami."
"Aunt Natsumi and her gouka inugami are impressive, aren't they?"
He chuckled. "Impressive isn't the word I was thinking of. Then again, you wouldn't be scared of the gouka inugami, either. Is there anything that Inuzuka Tsume fears? Does the thought of losing your children not invoke anything?"
Tsume studied her feet and wondered once more what happened to her boots. They seemed a little too important to just lose. She was pretty sure she was wearing them before they were attacked…
All she had to do was remember that day, just a few months before the Kyuubi attacked Konoha, when she had barely survived crossing paths with dear, poor, awful, horrible little not-really-Obito (who stank of swamp and trees, just like Yamato). She tasted revulsion in her mouth as she vividly recalled how he deliberately struck her abdomen, crushing the placenta with a dark wave of chakra, and how close she came to losing her son.
Even on that day, in that moment, Tsume couldn't tell for sure if she had felt fear. "It makes me mad," she whispered. "My sons are mine. I am Inuzuka. I am alpha. What's mine is mine, and I will kill anyone who horns in on my territory."
"Ah. Now that I can understand." Killer B gave Tsume a considering look. He set the ax to the side, and then started to carefully clean her shredded left hand. The bleeding had stopped by the time he gently applied first aid. Gosh, her hand seemed mighty small in his. "It would seem that your sense of possession replaced your sense of fear. Your actions to save Karui make more sense to me, now."
What made more sense?
"The Hachibi has strong senses, Inuzuka-san. That includes hearing – you said that for this mission, Karui was your companion, and you would do no less than your sensei. We in Kumo have another saying – no man or woman should ever be left behind. We stand as one, and we die as one."
Sakumo would've approved of that saying. Tsume imagine the way his approving smile would've spread across his face, lighting up his eyes and bringing sun into her life, if she had ever said anything like that to him.
Then everything momentarily went white once more when Darui forced her arm to bend so he could stuff it in a sling.
"Ah, sorry about that," Darui said as she came out of the wave of senselessness. "I didn't see the point in warning you when I knew this would happen. I was hoping that the pain wouldn't be so bad if you were distracted and didn't tense up in anticipation."
Tsume forced herself to breathe despite the horrendous pain. "S'no problem." Her voice was weak and distant in her ears.
Killer B waited until she was able to breathe without remembering to. "Who's Mooncalf? You mentioned him before."
"Hmmm? Oh, that's just Namikaze Minato." She grinned at the incredulous look Killer B gave her, his sunglasses almost falling off in shock. "Stupid nickname from when we were in the Academy together. I failed my last year and had to repeat because my memory was so shitty, so I got stuck in the same year as Minato. He was… he always had this goofy daydreaming look on his face."
Killer B was silent after that, studying Tsume once more with another curious expression on his face.
"We can't stay here," Darui said. "The Yozora clan will go looking for their dead clansmen, and will surely find us."
"Indeed. At least this area is easier to defend than the trail above. Go gather some wood before we leave. We'll want a warm fire tonight."
Karui returned as Darui left. Face ducked away, shy, she hurriedly draped Kokoro's scarf across Tsume's lap before retreated a few steps, kicking at stones and still not looking at Tsume.
Tsume tugged on the scarf – it was damp, and all visible traces of blood had been washed away. She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Gosh, thanks."
Karui kicked at another stone and jammed her hands into her pockets, sneaking a quick glance at Killer B, who beamed at Karui with paternal pride – Tsume remembered getting that look from Sakumo. Gosh, she missed the old Sakumo, with his quiet wisdom, contentment, and occasionally humorous confusion over being a single father trying to raise a genius son.
Karui still looked belligerent as she spoke. "Yeah, well, you've still got the responsibility for my life. Kumo killed your grandmother in the Second War, after all, and wartime deaths aren't the same as peacetime, especially when we're companions on this mission. I owe you for saving my life – you don't owe me anything, not even for what happened to my father." Karui mumbled the last of that in her collar, cheeks and ears burning bright.
Tsume wondered if she would be inadvertently insulting if she pointed out how much she was indebted to Kumo for killing Inuzuka Shinzou. Then she decided that it was probably best not to seem antagonizing when Karui was doing her best to make her sensei happy. "The wings – are they a bloodline limit, or were those guys born with them?" Someone had once told her that there was a clan in Lightning that had wings. Or maybe it was something she dreamed about, long ago.
"They come natural. We try not to think of the physics. Can you walk, Inuzuka-san?"
Tsume forced herself to focus on Killer B. "Yeah, sure. My legs are fine."
He frowned. "What happened to your boots?"
Tsume wiggled her toes in her socks. At least her feet felt fine. And she had walked through in Lightning before without any shoes, so it wasn't like it would kill her. "Dunno."
Killer B instantly began to riffle around in Darui's bag. "The risk of frostbite and losing your toes is too great this time of year. Ah hah!" He brought forth the bag that they had originally offered Tsume in Shikotan. "We in Kumo say to always bring spares and never throw away the extra!" His teeth sparkled with his wide smile.
"You're, uh, too kind. You shouldn't – no, really, you shouldn't." Tsume cringed as he slipped the boots on anyway. She'd much rather get frostbite. Ew. She knew exactly where the boots had been, and wondered if this qualified as an official act of war.
"Now, you may stand."
Stupid jelly for legs… Tsume managed to get upright with a little bit of help from Killer B (all right, a lot of help – he just picked her up and set her on her feet like she was nothing more than a bulky sack of feathers). Staying upright required a lot more effort.
"I'll carry you," Killer B decided. "Hup, hup. Hold onto my shoulders now."
Tsume decided that she liked riding Killer B. He was warm, comfortably large, and his waist (which she had sort-of wrapped her legs around to hold her in place) fit between her knees just right. Oooooh, this had potential!
"Thank you," Killer B said, sounding modest even as the back of his neck and the tips of his ears burned a bright red. He didn't smell upset, however. Er, which meant that she had said something out loud that she probably shouldn't have.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Tsume heard Karui whisper to Darui. "What if she tries to kill sensei, like cut his throat or something?"
Darui smelled embarrassed. "Kid, the only death those two share an interest in happens to be of the little, enjoyable type, which is funny, given the shape she's currently in."
"What?"
"I'll, uh, explain when you're older."