Part 3: Revelations
The Abbot's brother pulled back his terrifying weapon and sent it hurtling forth. Tomoki jumped aside, feeling a shock of pain as it passed. Hsien looped the chain suddenly with a flick of his thick wrist and the genin had to duck and roll away just in time to escape before the rattling chain closed around where his neck had been with bone-snapping force. Grunting with effort, the giant pulled the guillotine back to him then hurled it again. Once more Tomoki dodged and the weapon ripped into the stack of lumber just behind him, sending splinters and sawdust flying before it again returned to its master's hand.
Hsien chortled malevolently then ran his finger along one the flying guillotine's well-worn blades. He looked appreciatively at the boy's blood, rubbed a little between thumb and forefinger then tasted it with a critical expression on his face as if to judge it's vintage. "You're a nimble little rodent; I'll give you that!" he said then wiped his red-stained hand absently on his buckled vest.
Tomoki winced and spared a quick look at the wound in his side – seeping crimson amidst a tattered swath through his shirt and vest. Gritting his teeth, the young ninja drew his swords. "And you're ugly enough to make a train back up and take a dirt road," he shouted defiantly back. "I'll give you that!"
The man snarled, baring his lower teeth, then leaped into the air. Higher and higher his unworldly strength carried him until he descended in an arc right towards his astonished prey. With his reflexes and timing honed by years of dedicated training at the Leaf Village's academy Tomoki jumped back as Hsien landed, ducked under then jumped over broad, lethal sweeps of his imposing adversary's flying guillotine which Hsien wielded easily in one monstrous hand.
The beast of a man swung again but Tomoki was ready. He let it pass then closed quickly and slashed. Even as he rushed past after the follow-through, out of range of any riposte, the boy knew he hadn't done much. If Hsien's torso had been a rolled-up, soaked, tatami mat like the ones Tomoki often used for practice then the killer would have been cut cleanly in two; but his blade had only slid along the man's hide-like skin which was as tough as cured leather.
Hsien rose up proudly and raised his arms across his wide chest to appraise the damage. A long, red cut bled at his waist but it was little more than a superficial injury. "You'll have to do much better than that, little rodent!" the giant taunted then fed out a length of chain and started to swing the guillotine over his head, around and around, until it was almost solid-looking blur of motion.
Tomoki scowled, backpedaled as Hsien came forward then leaped away when the monster of a man charged. The genin landed on a palette of brick which blew out from under him as the guillotine's spinning blades exploded into it. He rushed at the giant, seeking to cut him before he could recover his weapon but was forced to dodge once again as Hsien brought his guillotine back, shortened his grip on its chain and whirled it before him in a tight figure-eight.
When Hsien lashed again Tomoki stood his ground and battered the bladed basket aside with both swords then charged. The giant spun, weathering the boy's attacks with his broad back, then whipped across with his long, massive arm that caught Tomoki hard across the chest. The ninja grunted hard from the impact and flew back, landed flat, then back-rolled his legs over his shoulders just in time to avoid Hsien's crippling downward blow.
Dazedly the boy retreated and took cover behind a stack of boards which tore to splinters under Hsien's onslaught then jumped up and waited in a crouch atop a pyramid of sacks. Hsien whirled his flying guillotine with both hands, the dreadful, metal contraption whooshing as it spun through the air, and let it fly but again his elusive prey rolled away and its blades cleaved instead through the sacks' canvas and sent blinding billows of white dust exploding into the air.
Hsien coughed and spat as he came forward with his weapon raised to strike but found no one. Slowly, methodically, he stalked half-blinded through the stacks of material, lashing out again and again with his guillotine only to find that he'd struck a trash can, discarded cement bag, or some piece of equipment. The giant's eyes narrowed, darting left and right, as they chased phantoms through the haze.
Hsien hissed his frustration then sniffed and a dreadful smile creased his porcine face. He rushed at once towards a short stack of barrels. "It's no good, little rodent," he growled. "That was a good trick using your ninja's jutsu but even with all this cement in the air, I can still smell you out!" He leaped and spun suddenly atop the barrels and swung down behind them but still found nothing there except a few tell-tale drops of blood where Tomoki had been.
"What?" the giant gasped in disbelief then roared with surprise at the staccato impacts at his neck and temple. He jumped down, shook himself and saw shuriken fall at his feet. Frowning glumly, the giant raised his fingers to his wounds then looked at the spots of blood on his fingertips. "You fight dirty, boy," he offered begrudgingly. "I admire that about you…if nothing else."
"Thanks," replied Tomoki loudly through the dusty haze, taking Hsien by surprise.
Hsien whirled around with a furious swipe then flinched at the barrage of throwing stars whose trajectories sought his vulnerable eyes. They whirred past his ears, caromed off his bony forehead and stuck into the less calloused parts of his neck, cheek and shoulders. His thick skin had again saved him from too much damage but the realization of the danger he faced settled over the giant and he cowered with his arm clenched protectively over his face.
"Oh, I'm sorry," the boy's voice offered icily. "I guess this isn't fun for you anymore, is it?" Hsien turned blindly toward the voice then again at a sound behind him. "I'm willing to bet that people have been afraid of you for a long time and that the bald guy wasn't the first man you've killed."
In mounting desperation, Hsien swung his guillotine then tried to whirl it but the weapon caught against a stockpile of metal pipes and tumbled out of control with a clanging percussive jangle. The giant gasped, choking in the cement-laden air, then squealed in shock as Tomoki's swords struck twice into his back like a matador at a bullfight.
"Brother!" Hsien cried out in naked desperation. "Help me, please! The little rodent's going to kill meeeeeeeee!"
As if in response, a wind rose just then and the dust began to clear. Feeling its relief, Hsien squinted his eyes and stumbled his way through the departing clouds until he stood out in the open.
There Tomoki awaited him, his skin and clothes caked in white - a ghostly vision against the towering black of the great bell.
Hsien glared with bestial rage, stamped his feet and bared his teeth.
"Wait!" Lin cried and rushed between the two. The sense of calm he'd always exuded was gone, replaced with frantic distress, a mantle of desperation. His expression twitched and his eyes darted. "Stop this, both of you," he shouted, arms flapping in consternation as he looked first toward his brother and then at Tomoki. "Hasn't there been enough bloodshed here? Hsien, put down your weapon; as your brother, I beg you. And you, Tomoki, you've brought this - this misery to my house; is this what you were taught?"
The ninja raised an eyebrow. "For whatever I might have done wrong," the boy offered, "I apologize." But then he shook his head and said: "But your brother is a killer, Abbot Lin. He killed a man right in front of us and I don't see how you can just ignore that."
"He didn't mean it!" crowed Lin, who pointed angrily at Tomoki with his face flushing red. "It was only because you were beating up my disciples that Hsien felt he had to intervene."
Hsien snorted with haughty, cruel laughter then shouted at him, "Fool! I don't need you to make excuses for me!"
Tomoki winced then replied to the Abbot, "That's a pretty poor excuse. Are you sure you're going to stand by that, holy man?"
"Shut up, rodent!" screamed Hsien as he surged forward, knocking Lin from his path with a great sweep of his tree-trunk arm, then hurled his guillotine with all his might. The weapon sped towards Tomoki, blades spinning; the ninja grimaced as he sidestepped from its deadly path just barely and leaped forward, slashing with both swords. Hsien, unable to pull the guillotine back in time, stretched the chain out taut between his hands and blocked both, then gathered up a length of it and swung it hard enough to crack the stone pavement. Having dodged to the inside, Tomoki sprang and kicked Hsien flush in the face. The giant staggered back, blood pouring from his nose, and jerked back hard on his weapon's chain.
The guillotine snapped back at once, catching the boy ninja in the back with its metal top. Tomoki sputtered in surprise and spun away to regroup while Hsien licked his lips and stormed forward after him.
Falling before his attacks, Tomoki retreated, half-stumbling, until he found himself trapped with his back flat against the cold iron wall of the great bell. Hsien swung down at the boy's skull; blood and rage filling his wild eyes. The ninja managed to block with both blades crossed like scissors but was buckled to his knees by the force. The steel of his swords creaked against the teeth of the giant's guillotine.
"You'll pay for cutting me," Hsien growled with satisfaction. "But on second thought, never mind, the extra satisfaction I'll get from killing you will make you taste that much better!"
Tomoki, who knelt there trapped, pinned by Hsien's monstrous strength, with sweat beading on his face and his muscles quivering like bowstrings, gasped as he replied: "What? Are you r-really going to eat me?"
"Of course!" the giant clarified, "even though you're probably all bones and gristle; it's been DAYS since I had a decent feast."
"Great," opined Tomoki acidly as the desperation of his predicament mounted. "B-but aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?"
"Not at all," retorted Hsien who leaned in closer, pressed even harder. "I know that expression 'not to dig the grave before the body lies' but in this case your death is…now!" The giant pivoted suddenly, drawing back and putting all his force into his free hand that rocketed towards Tomoki's chest with fingers tensed into a claw. Frozen for a moment with fear, Tomoki shut his eyes before the plan he'd developed carried him on. He abandoned his swords all at once and flung himself aside an instant before the fatal blow - a crushing force that carried instead into the thick walls of the great bell!
A deep, dull, clang echoed from the impact. Hsien's face contorted with pain as he dropped his weapon and drew back his broken hand to cradle it with the other.
Inwardly, Tomoki wailed his disappointment. He'd harbored high-hopes that the giant's terrible strength would be enough at least to put a crack in Naruto's prison if not a hole!
In any case, knowing Hsien would not be frozen for long, the ninja rolled sideways, collected his blades as he went then spun on his back in a tight circle, lashing out at the last moment to slice his distracted adversary across the Achilles tendon. The beast of a man squealed and dropped like a stone while Tomoki rolled away then rose to recover and gather his breath.
Abbot Lin rushed at once to his brother's side, knelt and tenderly took his hand.
The conquered giant looked up at him then at Tomoki and offered a mocking laugh. "You are a vicious little rodent aren't you – dangerous when cornered," he stated. "It serves me right – losing to a runt like you."
The boy brushed at the coat of cement powder on his clothes and sheathed his weapons. "And you aren't exactly human," Tomoki stated flatly as he panted for breath. His eyes of unassuming brown roved back and forth between the two brothers, "Either of you."
At this, Hsien's mirth waned into an appreciative snicker until the pain from his hand and ankle put an end to it. "Listen to that, brother," he rasped, "the little rodent's got a brain."
"Quiet!" Lin remonstrated, almost in tears at his brother's state. "It didn't have to come to this," he said then turned toward Tomoki. "You monster, look what you've done!"
Before the genin could answer, Lin flew at him. His long-legged kicks snapped for Tomoki's head, ribs and knees; bony wrists flailed at his jaw and temples and sharp strikes with all his fingers gathered into points darted toward his eyes. Surprised by his rage, the genin circled away, raised his fists and hunched his back in a protective posture while he gathered his wits.
When Tomoki struck back he struck furiously, hammering at the Abbot's arms and legs as he blocked them. He smashed down Lin's high kick with both forearms, hooked him behind the ankle with his foot to pull him off-balance, then whisked a sword out and whirled the razor point up under the Abbot's chin. The white-haired boy stopped dead then fell back unceremoniously on his butt as Tomoki prodded him.
"Do you know something?" Tomoki snarled. "I thought there were all kinds of freaks and weirdoes where I come from but I was wrong. I hadn't been here yet!" The leaf-ninja gestured at the prostrate giant. "Hsien here wants to gnaw on my shanks, and you, Abbot Lin, call this killer your brother and me the monster! You two win the prize!" He glared now at the Abbot. "But you're way worse than him, Lin, because I believed you and all that stuff you said about civilization. What a joke!
"I don't know what kind of asylum you're running here but I want no part of it or either of you! Now, if you'd be so kind as to release my friend, I'll be on my way. Oh, yeah, and if I get any more grief, I'm going to start chopping pieces off both of you. So what's it going to be?"
Hsien gave forth with a derisive chortle from where he lay. "Humans always like to talk tough when they think they have the upper hand," he croaked.
This threw Tomoki for a moment before he sensed another presence coming near. Oh, right, he realized to his chagrin, Lin's sister, Inakaya.
"Hello, boys," a woman's throaty, confident voice crooned. Tomoki winced as he turned toward the spear-armed newcomer and braced himself. Inakaya was tall and lithe with skin as dark as jet and bright, golden eyes that burned from a savage face. A mane of sand and coal-colored hair flowed over her shoulders, down her back and over her black and red satin jacket. She moved with an athletic grace that was almost beyond description. "Looks like fun; can I play?" she purred, revealing a horrible, fanged smile.
Tomoki swallowed hard and hung his head. "Look…all I want is my friend back," he stated tiredly, hardly in the mood or the shape for another fight, then pleaded with the Abbot: "Is that really too much to ask?"
"It is!" hissed Abbot Lin through clenched teeth. "Your friend is accursed! You are simply too stupid and selfish to see that your need to have your friend back must come second to the world's need to be free of the demon that inhabits him!"
Tomoki stared at Lin. Seeing him now, obstinate, ignorant and red-faced, he wondered how he ever thought of him as a friend. "You don't know what you're talking about," argued the genin. "All you've done is sentence Naruto to die without knowing the first thing about him!"
"Stop this, Tomoki!" spat Lin. "You're acting like a child."
"Look who's talking," the ninja sneered nastily, "about acting." Tomoki wet his lips and his brow beetled as he wondered how in the world he could find himself in a situation like this. "Anyway, have it your way," growled the boy who cursed then turned toward Inakaya as he stepped back into a unicorn stance with swords held ready. "Come on, let's get this over with."
"Mmm, spry and scrappy," observed Inakaya approvingly. "I like that. Let's fight a little bit. That way, your blood will be hot when I kill you."
Tomoki looked the terrifying woman over again certain that, much like her big brother, she had a similarly cannibalistic taste for human flesh. Inakaya hiked her spear - a slender, tapered shaft that was tufted around its bladed, metal point with red-dyed horsehair, then settled back.
In a blur of motion, Lin's sister rushed forward. Tomoki's eyes widened as the point flashed by his face in a red streak. He warded frantically with his swords and still had to weave madly to avoid the piercing steel. As the boy retreated she chased, pumping the blade of her spear high and low in an unstoppable rhythm. Cuts appeared from nowhere on his arms and legs until he blocked the spear soundly with the edges of his swords, pivoted sharply and kicked Inakaya hard in the midsection.
Hsien's equally-bestial sibling let out a breath and spun away, whirling her spear around to cover her retreat. Tomoki came after her, hunting for an opening until she planted herself, ready to strike, and the boy wisely declined to test her.
She looked at him slyly and stepped away, pacing at leisure. "'Cause you defeated big-brother, I'm guessing you're kinda clever."
Tomoki's eyes flickered toward the great bell then settled back on her as he grit his teeth and tried to ignore his wounds; he'd been very fortunate. Hsien had been far stronger but she was far faster.
"Not talking anymore?" the fearsome woman inquired cheerily then added, "Aww, come on." She gave up after a few moments. "Silly…you should enjoy life, 'cause it's not going to last much longer."
The boy followed her with his eyes. Though the young ninja's expression was cold, he thought furiously. He wanted desperately to use his jutsu but knew Inakaya was only teasing him with her apparent inattention and if he were to begin a hand seal she would spring and impale him in an instant.
"Hmm," Inakaya muttered as she twirled her spear around and around her body with practiced elegance. "You are kinda clever I suppose but it won't save you." She crouched then sprang, flying over the distance, and Tomoki felt the tip of her spear slash his cheek even through his ready guard. The woman thrust again and the genin blocked then skipped away as the woman stabbed at his feet leaving gouges in the stone.
Relentless, Lin's unlikely sister grinned and her eyes glowed with reflected sunlight as she attacked again, low then high, then shot in close and swept the back end of her spear at Tomoki's knees. The genin jumped up and felt spear whip just under the soles of his boots, then landed and cut down at the woman's neck with both blades. Inakaya hissed and struck the incoming blades aside with the returning butt end of her spear, rolling away as Tomoki spun completely around and slashed.
The genin followed her close behind, stretched his arm and cut her across the back but his impatient overextension cost him. Seizing the opening, Inakaya pivoted sharply and struck him in the chin with the end of her spear, stunning him for a moment and knocking him back. She then arched backwards, bridging on the top of her head and thrusting her spear back into the boy's trailing leg.
Tomoki cried out and hobbled away, warding as the fierce woman twisted out of her posture and stalked after him. Blood poured from his thigh like water from a faucet, ran down his leg and left a trail over the paving stones. Inakaya's expression widened with unrepressed glee as she pressed the attack, certain of victory, slashing and pumping the point of her spear at her wounded prey.
The genin's blades whirled, only slower and slower as he fatigued, until at last his wounded leg failed and he stumbled to one knee. Inakaya growled appreciatively and lunged, pistoning her spear forward in a perfect, fatal strike. Using more strength then technique, Tomoki tried to deflect the weapon with his left sword but the weapon wobbled then fell from his hand and he whirled the right around his head to assist. The spear slid hard and fast along the edge - close enough for the horse-hair tassel to tickle the boy's neck as it went by. The shaft followed, and a thin ribbon of wood shavings peeled away from it. Seeing one last, desperate chance, Tomoki wrapped his arm around the spear and pinned it tightly into his armpit so Inakaya could not pull it back then slashed straight down the shaft, using it as a guide. The fearsome woman gasped and, rather than losing fingers, wisely let go and stood back to glare at the boy with venom in her eyes.
Tomoki struggled to rise then met her glare, his sword in one hand and her spear in the other.
"Do you think that's the end of it?" Inakaya roared and sprang at him, catching him off-balance. She clutched her arms and legs around him; talons dug into his back and her fangs tore at his throat. Tomoki screamed and thrashed wildly as he tried to throw her off; his useless weapons dropped from his flailing grasp. The boy covered up the best he could, freed a hand, worked it up towards the wild woman's face and jammed his thumb hard in her eye but not before she'd taken a bite out of it.
Inakaya dropped off him and staggered away, blinded momentarily, then gathered herself and leaped again. As she flew at him, Tomoki crouched, grabbed one of his swords then threw himself flat to the ground. He gasped and shut his eyes when his back smacked hard against the stone then shouted as he slashed across with the last of his strength. The blade slowed slightly as it pulled through flesh and a hot spray exploded over the genin's face and chest.
Tomoki lay there, barely moving, though he knew he shouldn't. For all he knew, Inakaya could pounce on him at any moment. Move, ninja, move! he shouted at himself. The boy's arm twitched, then his leg until he finally rolled himself over and looked up.
Inakaya, who sat a few paces away, looked back pale and dazed. She sat on her knees with both arms hugged tightly around the gory, exposed contents of her abdomen. Blood poured in rivers through her fingers and pooled around her legs. Tomoki stared, stricken by the sight of her blank expression, then turned away as she lurched then slumped over.
Desperately wounded himself, spent, tired and angry, and yet still no closer to freeing Naruto, who was still a prisoner trapped beneath that horrible bell, the boy pushed himself into a crouch then slowly rose to his feet, recovered his other sword, wiped both clean and sheathed them.
Abbot Lin stared in blank shock at his fallen sister and then again at his wounded and prostrate brother. His shoulders shook as he choked with tears. "Look…" he gasped raggedly and gestured at them. "Look at what you've done."
Tomoki was too tired to speak. After a few ragged breaths, he cleared his throat then rasped accusingly, "This is YOUR fault." He blinked then rubbed his cheek. "There's no one to blame but yourself!"
"Brother," Lin sobbed in disconsolation, "sister."
Tomoki watched as the Abbot fell to his knees, wracked with grief, and he couldn't help but feel the same way. This is not my path, he said to himself, but the words seemed empty. After all, he was the one drenched in blood. The young ninja swayed dizzily for a moment then sank down and sat on the ground.
Knowing what he had to do, Tomoki gathered his breath and calmed himself in preparation then his fingers came together as he summoned the power of his chakra. The boy felt a blaze of heat and stabbing pains as his wounds closed and seamed together: the gash across his midsection and cracked rib, the great bloody stab in his leg, bitten neck, hand and shoulder, and so many other cuts and scrapes that he'd lost track of them. The effort of his jutsu made him shudder.
How has it come to this? Tomoki wondered. Was there really no other way? The boy let his head fall and stared at Abbot Lin, who knelt paralyzed with grief, and then again at the great, black bell which stood unmoved and unaffected by anything that had transpired.
As he studied the bell it seemed to him that it stared back, resolute and adamantine, determined and implacable even if war raged all around it. In perfect peace this enemy could dwell as the ages rolled by…long, long after Tomoki and Naruto had left this earth.
Healed now but drained, Tomoki daydreamed. When he'd vowed to find Naruto, had he really considered the lengths he was willing to go to or the depths to which he was willing to descend? What would Naruto himself think? How many deaths would he accept as a reasonable price for his emancipation?
A strange song woke him with a start. While he'd lain there, Abbot Lin had calmed himself then pulled in his legs to sit in a cross-legged lotus posture. One hand touched the ground while the other rose toward the sky as he sang - a single, resonant note, base and constant that emanated from deep within him. The Abbot's voice vibrated through the ninja, up the bones of his arms and legs and through his rib cage. His teeth rattled and Tomoki struggled to regain a measure of focus but, as he watched, frozen in place by Abbot Lin's utterance, his eyes widened with shock as Inakaya's exposed innards crept together and drew back inside her. The swollen, bruised and broken mass of Hsien's shattered hand reformed whole as did the deep, crippling cut at the back of his ankle. In a matter of moments both Hsien and Inakaya rose up wholly restored and smiling with anticipation.
Tomoki sat up, stood, looked back and forth between the two of them and then at the Abbot. "That hardly seems fair," he remarked but the fight was already rejoined.
The world whirled around him in a blur of Inakaya's blindingly-fast spear thrusts and the ripping blades of Hsien's flying guillotine.
Behind it all the Abbot's words rang out, unheard and unacknowledged: "Stop it, all of you! Have you learned nothing?"
Tomoki dodged and parried desperately against the two foes who denied him even the flicker of a second he'd need to draw his swords. Exhausted, the ninja leaped one way, then another, then broke for cover.
"Don't lose sight of him!" rumbled Hsien who tried to snare Tomoki with his chain as he ran for the stockpiles. "He's tricky!"
"You're telling me?" his sister protested then reassured, "Don't worry, I've got him!" she said as she followed close on the heels of her quarry. She chased Tomoki over a mound of sand then around the pile of sacks that had been torn open earlier by Hsien's guillotine.
Hsien circled to head the genin off, coming around a pyramid of barrels and then a palette of bricks. He licked his lips and raised his weapon to strike as he cut back toward Inakaya with Tomoki trapped between them.
At last their paths converged and the two almost collided but the siblings stopped short and looked at each other in shock…because their prey was nowhere to be found.
Hsien's expression blanked then scowled. "What happened?" he demanded to know, squealing: "Where is he? How did you let him escape!"
Inakaya bridled and rose to her brother's anger. "Me?" she hissed indignantly. "Where were you! You're the one who screwed up!"
The Abbot's big brother whirled around, trying to look everywhere at once, while his sister did the same. "Never mind!" he shouted. "Just find him, now!"
"There he is, brother!" cried Inakaya, and her finger shot forward as she pointed. "Up on those boxes!"
Hsien ceased his search, snarled and cocked his weapon back to fling.
Right before the courtyard's scaffold-covered wall, up upon a banded stack of boxes, stood Tomoki whose fingers flew as he made hand signs. He concentrated for a moment then said to himself, "Ninja art: Iron Vest Jutsu."
Inakaya's spear flew through the air like a red streak, struck squarely into Tomoki's chest…shuddered, bowed then bounced off. Hsien's guillotine followed close behind but the ninja battered it aside with a strike from both forearms which sent the spinning, bladed weapon clattering inertly to the ground. The boy's lips pulled back into a determined grimace.
"I should have thought of this before!" he announced, gathered his strength and again made hand signs. "Hup…hum…hee…hah," he began, the resonances of his notes stimulating his organs in sequence: liver, kidney, heart and lungs, and made his chakra flow.
Abbot Lin, appalled and rendered silent by ensuing violence, paled and stepped forward, pleading: "No, Tomoki, please don't!"
The last word the ninja uttered was unheard, a tone that surpassed hearing as he completed his jutsu – the Spirit Cannon before which no other jutsu, spirit or spell could stand. Reality itself seemed to split as the shockwave went forth through his adversaries, washed over the courtyard walls but broke upon the great bell's iron shore. Tomoki swayed from the effort, leaned over and braced himself on his knees.
When he looked up through his bleary vision, the ninja saw what his jutsu had revealed - the Abbot and his sibling's true forms. Where Hsien had stood, his clothing and the tail end of the chain for his horrific weapon lay abandoned. In his place stood a massive beast – a demonic boar with curved, razor tusks that stuck from a drooling, fang-filled snout. Instead of a woman, in Inakaya was found a leopard, long-limbed, with great, clover-leaf paws that bristled with hooked claws. In place of Abbot Lin stood a crane, as tall as a man, with long legs, broad, white wings and pointed, ivory bill.
"So…this is what it is," Tomoki muttered to himself and swallowed. "This place…the Shining Summit Monastery has been overtaken by animal-spirits."
The demon boar thrashed and grunted, charged then leaped into the air. Tomoki came to his senses and sidestepped but not enough and the blow sent him flying. If not for the lingering powers of his iron vest, the beast's tusks would have torn him completely open. Grimacing in paint, the ninja twisted in mid-air, grabbed the scaffold and swung himself onto its uncertain, planked floor while the boar's momentum carried it crashing through the scaffold's scant construction and into the stone wall behind it.
The boy heard and felt the thud of its impact and watched for a moment as the boar shrugged away the effects. He bolted then down the scaffold but was cut off by the horrible leopard that was Inakaya. The creature howled and leaped with claws outstretched and fangs bared. Tomoki dropped to his back and kicked up at the last moment as he tried to throw the beast over him but she was too nimble; the monstrous cat twisted and came after him, clawing and biting.
Overwhelmed by the creature's ferocity, the boy threw himself to the side, over the edge of the scaffold and dropped down to the platform below but Inakaya jumped all the way to the ground then sprang right back at Tomoki who ran from the beast, grabbed a column and tried to vault up to the next level.
Teeth seized his trailing leg, and Tomoki cried out in anguish as claws raked his skin. "Get away!" the genin screamed as he hung from the scaffold's framework and kicked furiously at the leopard-monster's nose and eyes. After repeated stomps, beast released him and dropped agilely to the ground, leaving the boy gasping and bleeding from slashed legs. He hobbled desperately along the bouncing platform then looked up in shock as the scaffold on which he stood started to collapse in a great, rolling wave that raced toward him; he saw then through the planks that the demon boar was just below him, lashing left and right at the supports with its razor tusks.
Quickly Tomoki made his hand signs just before the floor fell out from under him.
He reappeared that instant from a shadow inside one of the courtyard's pagodas, surprising alarmed disciples who'd stayed to watch the fight despite their Abbot's command to depart. They fell back and some fled in outright terror as the genin lurched forward out of the darkness.
One of them, a middle-aged man with a long, thin moustache quaked in his blue and plum robes as he asked: "W-what's going on? Are those…b-beasts really Lin and his family?"
"Uncle, what are you saying!" his younger counterpart interrupted. "Don't be so stupid! This kid's some kind of evil sorcerer who's used his powers on our beloved Abbot, Brother Hsien and Sister Inakaya!" Tomoki's glassy eyes rolled between the two as the younger guard continued, "But you'll be sorry! Just look at you," he snapped contemptuously, "you won't last ten more minutes!"
A loud, frightening howl cut short any further conversation as a huge, feline shape materialized at the door. Instinctively Tomoki flung himself out the other as Inakaya slashed her way through her brother's followers like wheat before the thresher. The leaf-ninja stumbled forward out onto the high walkway that ringed the courtyard of the great bell blinded by the sun and didn't hear the charging hooves or the snort of the demon-boar's breath until it was too late.
A force like a train smashed across his middle and launched him into the air. Tomoki rolled end-over-end then head-over-heels as the momentum carried him sprawling down the walkway. Once he'd finally come to a stop the boy braced his quaking hands on the parapet and heaved himself up with a stricken groan. Over the top of the guard-wall he could see through his blurring vision the vast mountain vistas beyond as well as the sheer drop down rocky slopes and scraggily, unforgiving trees and undergrowth.
Turning to flee, he stumbled straight into Inakaya who had regained her human-like form. Abbot Lin's sister slapped his face but Tomoki could feel her unseen claws slice though his cheek down to the teeth and bone. The impact swung him around into Hsien who also appeared human…or as human as he had been.
Huge, hard and merciless fists rained down and pounded the genin to the floor. Dazed and bleeding he looked up into Hsien's contemptuous leer. The man-beast seized the fallen Tomoki by his vest and pulled him up high off the ground so he could look into his face.
"Brother!" Abbot Lin shouted from down below. "Don't hurt him anymore! He's beaten…just let him go!"
Tomoki saw Hsien's cruel eyes swivel toward his panic-stricken brother then back to him. "I'm not going to hurt you," he explained in a whisper pregnant with evil then turned towards the parapet beyond which the mountainside plunged. "I'll let the ground do that. Yes, I'll let you molder down there a couple of days until you're nice and ripe." With that, Hsien shifted his vice-like grips to Tomoki's upper arm and thigh then hoisted the young ninja high overhead.
"STOP!" Lin's ragged, desperate shriek pierced the air.
The boy felt the shift as Hsien's massive arms cocked his body back behind his shoulders and then the sudden rush of acceleration as he was flung spinning into space. Air whistled in his ears which popped a little from the sudden pressure change. The rushing wind felt cool against the wet, oppressive heat of his wounds. The sensation of falling was almost peaceful.