"There are ten individuals in the facility."
The veins around his eyes bulged out as Hyūga Kō used his Byakugan to inspect the facility hidden in a steep cliffside. The short-haired man's milky eyes were powerful, even among his legendary clan, allowing him to see for more than five hundred meters in all directions and through solid objects, an exceptionally useful skill for scouting. This enhanced sight had convinced Kakashi to grant Kō's request to join the rescue squad, despite the other man having spent the past several years as the Hyūga heiress' retainer instead of actively taking missions. The intervening months after the group had departed Konoha had laid any concerns about the quiet man's fitness to rest, as he had trained vigorously to regain and improve his skills.
As he inspected the facility's occupants, the Hyūga's face wrinkled in confusion. "Their movements are uncoordinated and haphazard; they lack any real organization and seem to be aimlessly wandering through the facility." Narrowing his focus to the nearest figure, Kō grimaced. "Though their chakra levels are disturbingly high, their network seems to be engorged. The tenketsu are warped almost beyond my ability to perceive, and their chakra flow is irregular." Quickly looking over the rest of the figures within the underground base, he concluded, "All of them have the same deformities. I believe these must be more of Orochimaru's monsters, though a different breed than the corpses we have thus far encountered."
"Kuso," a voice behind Kakashi cursed. Turning, the silver-haired Jōnin regarded his second team member as she smashed her fist into a nearby tree, quietly venting her frustrations. Mitarashi Anko was several years younger than Kakashi, and though she wasn't quite to the Hatake genius' level, she was still impressively skilled for her age. The purple-haired kunoichi had been part of Orochimaru's Genin team while the Sannin had been part of Konoha's forces. Since the rogue had fled the village, she had trained her skills as an interrogation specialist, using an obnoxious, blood-thirsty persona to convince her charges to talk.
Though the young Chūnin's former affiliation might have made her loyalties suspect, Kakashi trusted the word of the Hokage when the old man assured him that Anko hated Orochimaru with a passion and was the first to volunteer for any missions that might see her former teacher brought to justice. Due to her familiarity with their adversary, skillset as an interrogator and infiltrator, and personal motivation to see the mission completed, Anko had been the first person Kakashi had recruited for his rescue squad. Her threats against the future of his clan and his general bodily health, should he fail to include her, hadn't hurt her case either.
"He's not here either!" the purple-haired kunoichi hissed angrily. "How many secret labs has he been able to set up? That's three we've found in the year we've been out here!" She gestured wildly at the small cutout in a cliffside just over a hundred meters away that the group had identified as the facility's likely entrance. "And, if the monsters are out, that probably means that someone was already here to scrub the evidence, too."
"Nevertheless, we must enter! Perhaps our quarry left behind a clue that will lead us to our goal. After all, he cannot hope to hide from our noble efforts forever. As a sworn foe of our beautiful village, Orochimaru will one day falter, and our righteous pursuit will lead us to the stolen children!" Kakashi flinched as the last team member shared his opinion. Maito Gai's voice was, technically speaking, at an appropriate volume. No one outside a ten-meter radius would be able to hear him, at all. Somehow though, Kakashi's "Eternal Rival" managed to make even a whisper seem like a boisterous shout, a feat that was widely attributed to a bizarre combination of general insanity and instinctive genjutsu skills whose ratio was best left unexamined.
Gai's selection had been an unorthodox choice on Kakashi's part. The exuberant young man's skillset was tightly focused on combat, and his personality could be off-putting, even to those who knew him well. He had no specialized skill at tracking, scouting, interrogation, information gathering, or anything else that would be expected for this kind of retrieval mission. Subtlety was a foreign word to the self-proclaimed "Sublime Green Beast of Prey".
Despite those criticisms, Kakashi knew that Gai was also relentless, unflinching in his dedication to his ideals and any mission he undertook. He was intensely loyal, having once petitioned the Hokage for admission into the ANBU Black Ops to support Kakashi, even though his mentality was almost the antithesis of what the clandestine organization expected of its members. Gai would see the children brought back to Konoha, Kakashi knew, regardless of how long it took or how much it cost him.
"Gai's right," Kakashi finally joined in the conversation as he unrolled a blank scroll on the dirt. "There may be some information hidden in the facility that we can use. And, even if there is no valuable intelligence, we still need to make sure that those monsters won't hurt anyone else. Kō-san, can you give us an idea of the floor plan and the location of the targets?"
Deactivating his Byakugan, Kō turned and began to sketch the installation's layout with the charcoal Kakashi had provided. "I believe this may have been the storeroom," he said, tapping a large space situated far from the entrance. "The largest creature appears to have taken up residence here with two others, while the remainder roam the hallways, sometimes alone and sometimes in pairs. These other rooms may have been quarters and labs, but they are largely destroyed." Unrolling the parchment further, the stoic Hyūga began to trace a rough approximation of a sealing formula on the scroll. "The entrance is heavily trapped, which explains why the creatures haven't left the facility. This is the approximate design of the most frequently occurring seal, though I noticed several more traditional traps as well, positioned both to keep the current occupants inside and to repel intruders."
"It looks like it drains chakra," Kakashi concluded after a moment's inspection of the seal. "That's quite clever. Anyone who tries to get through gets drained, triggers some traps as they stumble, and is knocked into even more seals." Considering for a moment, he continued, "We should avoid disabling them, if possible, so that the monsters can't get around behind us and escape."
"I say we have Big Green bust open a new door here," Anko proposed, jerking her thumb in Gai's direction, and pointing to the passage closest to the outside. "That way, we don't even have to worry about the traps. We sweep through, taking out the roamers before we go greet the big guy and his posse. If we're quiet, they might not even know we're there." Her dark eyes lit with excitement. "On the other hand, if we're loud, Kakashi might pull out that assassination jutsu I've heard so much about. Talk about a conundrum."
"Gai-san would need to beat his way through more than twenty meters of stone to make an entrance there," Kō informed her, as he reactivated his Byakugan. "Unfortunately, your proposal is also likely to make quite a bit of noise. Besides, the creatures appear to have made a concerted effort to break through at several locations, to no avail. Orochimaru seems to have allowed no chances of escape."
"That's no problem," Kakashi rose from where he had been inspecting both Kō's map and the seal rendition. "They call me Sharingan no Kakashi for a reason. I have something I picked up from a scuffle with an Iwa Jōnin several years ago that should get us in without the need for Gai to smash through tons of rock as he announces our entrance. I can disguise it, too. Now," he said, cutting across his melodramatic friend's imminent comment and pointing to an outer part of the facility in the charcoal drawing, "Kō, correct me if you see something different, but I imagine that this narrow hallway sees less traffic from the occupants than these others close to the front."
The Hyūga watched for several minutes before he nodded. "The space seems smaller than most of them could comfortably fit."
"Okay then," Kakashi leaned back down, tracing a path with his finger. "We come in here. Gai and Kō-san, you two head right; Anko and I will go left. Eliminate targets as you encounter them. Once you get to this intersection, wait for the other team to join you. We'll clear these… labs?" His enquiring glance at Kō was met with an affirmative nod, so Kakashi continued, "before we head to the storeroom. Do not engage if you encounter more than two at once. Come back around and join up so that we're never outnumbered. Once we connect, we can engage the big three. Questions?"
The Hyūga shook his head solemnly, while Anko pouted, and Gai flashed a thumbs-up and a gleaming smile. Kakashi took a moment to lament having one team member who seemed to have no personality and two others with more personality than he could handle before he rolled up the scroll and led the team up the cliffside to the area which Kō indicated would correspond with Kakashi's chosen point-of-entry. Once all four were settled with their chakra anchoring them to the sheer cliff face, the silver-haired man ran through a series of twenty-six hand signs before slamming his palms on the vertical surface. A circle of the hard stone, roughly a meter and a half in diameter, seemed to melt away, leaving a cylindrical passage into the facility.
Anko led the way through the opening, her posture tense and rigid. She had been this way at each of the other sites they had found, Kakashi reflected. With no real combat to vent her stress, she had grown even more tense at each new base. He would let her lead as they swept through this site, to work off a bit of the edge. Gai flashed a blinding smile and disappeared into the hole, to be followed a moment later by Kō. Kakashi made his way through the tunnel last and dropped on the floor next to his teammates. He regarded the hole for a moment before running through a different string of hand signs that raised a stone slab to block the entryway. The location of the hole was obvious, and none of the team would have trouble breaking down the stop, to say nothing of the monsters they expected to find within, but at least there would be no breeze or whistling from outside to draw unwanted attention to their point of entry.
With a brief series of hand gestures, the groups separated, Anko eagerly leading Kakashi to the left, while Gai and Kō proceeded down the right passage. After a minute, the purple-haired girl pulled up short and hugged the wall, as a grumbling, almost petulant, voice echoed down the passageway. "… won't even share a little snack. It's not as though we wouldn't have enough. Now, I have to go look for rats and leftovers."
Anko palmed a kunai and gestured for Kakashi to follow her on the ceiling before she edged around the corner to inspect the voice's owner. Twenty meters ahead, the hallway widened into a small antechamber, which was littered with papers and infused with the stench of decay. In the middle of the space, a hulking figure stood, as though ready to pounce. It was a huge frame, Kakashi decided, larger than even Jiraiya-sama and better muscled. Its skin was almost red, as though irritated by a burn, and horns protruded from its face, giving it the appearance of a beastly ogre. He watched Anko slip forward silently, approaching her target before freezing as it lunged forward to a corner of the room.
A frightened squeak sounded and cut short as the creature drew back its huge hand, spilled blood barely visible against its ugly skin. The monster leaned its head backward and dropped a crushed rodent into its maw. "Gah, there's no way I'll fill up on just rats," it mourned as it crunched down the morsel, showing off rows of sharpened teeth. "I'd like to see Ōzumō come out here and try to get by on-"
The monologue was cut short as Anko raced into range, extending her right arm as dozens of snakes slithered from her sleeve to encircle the creature, hissing threateningly. "Don't worry," she appeared behind her victim and whispered in its ear, "you won't have to worry about being hungry ever again." With that, she drove her kunai into the creature's back and her serpentine familiars surged forward, biting every bit of exposed skin they could access. Kakashi noticed, however, that neither the knife blow nor the snake bites seemed to pierce the creature's skin as effectively as they should have.
"Who are you?" The creature asked, seemingly unaffected by the unexpected assault. Tree trunk arms pushed against the constrictive hold of the reptiles and, before Anko could overcome her surprise to act further, its face brightened. "You're not part of Ōzumō's crew… but you might be one of the ones who let us out. That means I can eat you! Oh, I'm not going to be hungry for a long time!" Huge muscles strained, and the snakes were forced to loosen their hold. Anko's eyes widened in alarm, before a kunai wreathed in lightning raced from the shadows and buried itself in the creature's eye socket. The beast flinched, twitched several times, and fell limp.
Anko remained tense for a count of twenty, and when the creature made no more movements, lowered her arms, her serpentine familiars retracting back into her sleeves. "What was that?!" she hissed angrily, turning to Kakashi who had dropped from his hiding place in the shadows. "That was my fight! I could have handled it."
"Maa, maa," Kakashi calmed her. "I have no doubt that you could have handled it, but your captive was getting excited and starting to shout. I didn't want to have all these things coming after us because this one got too loud." As Anko deflated, accepting Kakashi's reasoning, he gestured to the hulking form on the floor. "Did something happen? It looked like you couldn't pierce the skin."
Anko nodded. "I didn't make any headway." Rolling the beast onto its chest with her foot, she gestured to where her blade should have made entry along its spine. Instead of the expected bloody hole, all Kakashi saw was a slight indent and a pale patch of skin, like what he would expect to see from pressing the back of a calligraphy brush into his own arm. Ramming her blade into the same spot, Anko showed how it only descended two or three millimeters, almost as though the creature was made of steel instead of flesh. "If this is the case for all these bozos, I'm worried. We can't let any of them escape, especially given how this guy was talking about eating me," she resolved.
Kakashi nodded in agreement. "Do you have a way to pierce their skin, if the rest are like this?"
"Pshaw, who do you think you're talking to?" Anko asked dismissively. "The dangerous, sexy Mitarashi Anko won't be stopped by some lab-experiment freaks with iron skin. I just have to pull out some skills that haven't seen use in quite a while." Closing her eyes, Kakashi felt his companion channel her chakra into the blade in her hand. Keeping her eyes closed, she knelt and jabbed into the creature, piercing through its flesh with little resistance. "Ha," she exclaimed, looking with pride on her work. "That man uses the Kusanagi. There's no way I wouldn't have picked up at least a little about how to make my weapons cut better if I got to watch the Grass Cutting Sword at work." Turning back to Kakashi, she leveled a commanding finger. "Now, I'm taking the lead. You, watch my back and don't interfere."
Kakashi nodded, and the pair blurred down the passageway, making their way deeper into the complex. They encountered two more creatures further down the hallway, both of which Anko dispatched with distinct enthusiasm and no trouble. A short way beyond the last cooling corpse, they found Gai and Kō waiting in the agreed-upon intersection. To the right was a doorway that seemed to have been pummeled open, as the heavy, metal double doors were dented and bowed into the hallway. The vile scent of rot escaped the destroyed entryway, and a quick glance revealed that the inside of the room held broken glass cylinders and what had likely been a bookshelf, though it was now a scorched ruin. The doorway to the left seemed in remarkably good condition when compared to the abuse inflicted on its counterpart, though it still bore several dents from excessive force.
"My rival, I claim victory this round," Gai flashed a triumphant grin. "Not only were Kō-san and I able to reach the intersection more quickly; we also overcame one more of these vile creatures along the way. With my victory, this brings our tally to-". Gai's fervent declarations died in his throat as he turned to find his teammates going over Kō's map of the facility, determinedly ignoring his monologue.
The overly enthusiastic man turned away to pout over how "hip" and "cool" his rival was before Kakashi softly called him to join the discussion. "Gai, we need to plan our entry." The team leader watched as Kō inspected the room on the other side of the intact door, filling in more details about the contents of the space and providing a rough drawing of the creature that seemed to have taken command of the rest of the monsters. It looked to be a vaguely humanoid, sagging mass of flesh that bulged in odd places.
As Kō finished his sketch and added the current locations of the creatures to the map, Kakashi made his plan. "Okay, I'm going in alone." At the bewildered expressions of his teammates, the silver-haired man explained himself: "One of the creatures we eliminated said something about 'the ones who let us out'. I want to see if I can get any more information about that. After I draw their attention, I want you three to sneak into the room and take up position. At my signal, or if they attack, you engage. Kō-san and Anko will target the support while Gai helps me finish the big one. Any questions?"
Kō shook his head, his face hard and the veins around his eyes bulging, Gai flashed a grin and a thumbs-up, and Anko grumbled about Kakashi "taking the best targets for himself" before composing herself and shaking her head. All three silently assumed flanking positions around the intact door before Kakashi raised his arms and flung the doors wide open, striding into the room.
His first impression was that Kō's rendition had been far too generous to the largest creature. While the drawing had shown odd proportions, the truth was that this barely resembled anything bipedal. Whereas the other creatures in the facility had been bulky but well-muscled, this behemoth was flabby and veiny with bulbous, almost cancerous protrusions growing all over its body. The other creatures had been large, but this one was tremendous, possibly standing three meters tall. Its thickset frame was covered with three or four times as much flesh as it needed, hanging loosely, almost like bolts of cloth. The skin of the monster was a vibrant, poisonous green and almost seemed to pulse a sickly yellow in time with its heartbeat. On either side of the giant stood two more of the 'normal' beasts they had found throughout the rest of the compound. The creature looked up from the crate that it had been raiding to stuff its face and broke out into a grin that displayed rotten, mismatched teeth. "What is this? A morsel has come to present itself to the great Ōzumō!" Idly, it picked another handful from the crate and tossed the random assortment of splintered wood and dry rice into its mouth. "Did my crew send you to me as an offering?" it asked, spraying bits of food as it spoke. "Perhaps one of them has found a way past the Wall of Weakness."
"Not at all," Kakashi replied calmly, pleased to watch his team blur through the door without any of the creatures taking notice. "I came to find information about Orochimaru, and they attacked me. You'll find their bodies scattered throughout this facility."
"Hah!" the giant's voice boomed. "Those ones were weak. They will serve me just as well as food! But you must have come from outside. I was there once, in the sunshine. That was before. When I was small and weak." It paused to consider. "Perhaps you made it past the Wall of Weakness because you are so small. Maybe if I am smaller, I will be able to escape the Wall." The brute seemed to concentrate for a moment before its flesh began to ripple, pulling in on itself. As Kakashi watched, the giant shrunk down so that it was half his height, though it still retained its grotesque features. "There! Now, I will escape the Wall of Weakness and go to the outside, where there are enough morsels for me to eat forever! You two may eat this after I leave," Ōzumō gestured to the ogres at his sides, who licked their lips in anticipation and began to advance on the Jōnin.
"Hold on," Kakashi assumed a defensive stance and raised his hitai-ite, reaching into his holster to retrieve a kunai. "Someone let you out of that lab. Who was it? Who burned the shelves? Who set up the traps in the entryway?" Seeing no comprehension on the creatures' faces as they drew nearer, Kakashi decided to rephrase his questioning. "Who freed the great Ōzumō from his prison only to bind him behind the Wall of Weakness?" He opened his Sharingan, hoping to catch the brutes in a genjutsu to encourage them to talk.
The sharp intake of breath before he could even begin to weave his illusion took Kakashi by surprise, however. "A Red Eye!" Ōzumō bellowed, his intent to foray outside seemingly forgotten. "We will not be fooled again!" So saying, the creature began to grow again until he was larger than before, nearly three times Kakashi's height. "Tear the Red Eye limb from limb!" Ōzumō roared to his ogre companions as he began to charge at the silver-haired Jōnin.
"Dynamic Entry!" Gai's shout echoed off the stone walls as the bowl-cut man dove from the shadows to deliver a brutal kick to Ōzumō's jaw. "Monster, I will not allow you to attack my rival! The power of Youth demands that I stand by him in this confrontation."
Kakashi noted that Anko and Kō had each engaged one of the smaller beasts as he raced forward to help his friend, momentarily ignoring his concerns about the meaning of the term 'Red Eye' until the threats had been eliminated. "Gai, you go high, I'll go low." Racing through a series of hand signs, Kakashi slammed his hands on the ground, causing stone bindings to rise from the ground around Ōzumō's feet. As soon as the feet were set, Gai rocketed off the ground to deliver a brutal haymaker to the giant's jaw.
The hulking figure reeled backward from the blow, but the men's elation was cut short as it let loose a bellow even louder than before. "You cannot stop me, Red Eye. I am Ōzumō the Resilient. I am Ōzumō the Mighty. I will see you and your dogs destroyed!" So saying, the tremendous legs wrenched free of their stony restraints, crumbling the rock like sand, and one colossal arm swung wildly at Gai, knocking the green-clad man into the far wall, where he left a sizable crater. Turning his attention to Kakashi, the fleshy face grinned. "I will enjoy eating you, Red Eye."
"Kō-san, how's Gai?" Kakashi shouted as he leapt away from the whirling arms, striking at the limbs as he dodged. To his dismay, the clarity afforded by the Sharingan revealed that Ōzumō's flesh seemed to give way in baggy folds that caught Kakashi's kunai, nearly ripping it from his hand while leaving no damage on the giant's skin.
"Ha, such a blow is not enough to defeat Konoha's Beautiful Green Beast of Prey," Gai declared loudly as he regained his feet amid the rubble. "However, for allowing myself to be struck, I will do one thousand-"
"Not the time, Big Green," Anko shouted as she sliced her sharpened kunai at the ogre barely restrained by her familiars. "These things are hard enough to take down when they aren't expecting a fight. Their skin seems to have gotten even harder now that they're ready to rumble." As she spoke, the creature broke free of the scaly coils and, grabbing one of the serpents, heaved Anko closer. A clawed hand reached up to grab the purple-haired woman's skull, but she twisted out of the way, making wild slashes at its arm as she flew past.
"I agree with Anko-san," Kō grunted as he traded blows with the second ogre. "These creatures' skin is covered in a layer of chakra, which would blunt your blows. They also have no real tenketsu, which hinders my own efforts as well."
"We cannot be defeated by your pathetic attacks, White Eye," the creature engaging Kō bellowed. "Though he is cruel, Orochimaru-sama has made us strong. Stronger than any save himself!" A wicked claw made a lucky strike and raked along the Hyūga's outstretched arm with the declaration, leaving a bloody gash.
The stoic man stumbled backward and assumed a shaky guard stance, intent on attempting to ward off the creature's follow-up attack, but it never arrived. Gai intercepted the monster mid-pounce with a second flying kick that ricocheted it into the wall, leaving another crater opposite the first. "How are you, my friend?" The green-clad Jōnin flashed a gleaming smile at the battered Hyūga as he straightened, placing one hand behind his back, and beckoning the creature forward. "See to your wound. I will hold this beast's attention while you determine the enemy's weakness."
Nodding, Kō stepped back and surveyed the chamber with his dōjutsu as he wrapped a bandage around the gash in his arm, the Byakugan's all-encompassing vision allowing him to observe all three fights at the same time. He first took note of how Ōzumō's flabby skin stretched to nullify Kakashi's attacks. The giant was almost invulnerable and physically powerful but was also uncoordinated and careless, twice having swung at the silver-haired captain only to smash its fellow monstrosities when Kakashi ducked out of the way. After a moment, Kō noticed that the creatures seemed to draw chakra from the air with every breath, which was then shunted throughout their body to reinforce and diffuse the force from Anko and Gai's blows or stretch around Kakashi's slashes. "They are drawing chakra from the environment to fuel their defenses," the Hyūga declared. "If we were somehow able to halt the absorption, they would quickly drain their reserves."
"Isn't stopping chakra your job?" Anko bit out angrily as she dodged away from her foe's attacks. "I thought that was the whole point of the Jūken. Don't tell me your whole clan's just talk."
"Anko!" Kakashi chastised. This wasn't the time, and she knew it. They needed to figure out a way to win this fight; then she and Kō could discuss the merits and weaknesses of his clan's fighting style. A particularly powerful attack might pierce the lieutenants' skin, but the raging giant in front of him was clearly another matter. Right now, they needed a way to weaken their foes, primarily this Ōzumō… Kakashi froze as a realization struck him, the moment of hesitation nearly cost him his head as he barely ducked under one of the giant's flailing blows. Once he recovered his equilibrium, the Hatake genius's mind raced. "Kō-san, I need you to reengage. Gai, tag me out. Anko, restrain."
The team responded instantly, Kō diving in for a foot stomp which drew a howl of rage and a renewed assault from the ogre that occupied Gai. As soon as he was confident that he would not be chased, the Green Beast leapt forward, delivering a series of blows intended to disorient and confuse to the side of Ōzumō's head. "You will not escape me, Red Eye!" the giant howled, barely paying any attention to Gai's assault. "You cannot hide behind this annoyance!"
"Ha," Gai exclaimed. "You are most uninformed, my unyouthful adversary. For I am not an annoyance; I am Maito Gai, Konoha's Sublime Green Beast of Prey!" He flashed a gleaming smile at the hulking form in front of him.
The giant turned its attention to Gai, a baleful scowl affixed to its fleshy features. "Beast, pest, or food, you will not stop me from destroying the Red Eye!" With that, Ōzumō barreled after Gai, completely ignorant of the fact that this was what the bowl-cut Jōnin had intended.
As his opponent charged toward Gai, Kakashi caught Anko's eye. The purple-haired kunoichi nodded in understanding and raised her arm again, sending out her serpent familiars to restrain her opponent. Seeing the opening, Kakashi raced through nine hand seals, channeling chakra to his right hand and charging it to bear the nature of the thunderstorm. The cry of furious birds cut through the air, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. This was Kakashi's original jutsu, the Chidori. The lightning condensed on his palm, and Kakashi raced forward, driving his fist into the creature's chest, ignoring any resistance its skin had offered.
As the suddenly limp form slumped in Anko's grasp, Kakashi turned and raced through the seals again. "Kō!" The Hyūga understood what was being asked of him and dashed forward, striking at his suddenly frantic foe's legs. He couldn't cut off the chakra flow, but several strikes to its thighs and calves momentarily seized the muscles and slowed the monster down sufficiently for Kakashi's purposes. As current began to arc from his palm, Kakashi again raced forward, burying his lightning-sheathed fist into the second creature's chest.
As the still form slumped off his arm, Kakashi straightened to find Ōzumō staring at him in horror. "They were my strongest," the giant whispered in dismay before losing whatever composure he had previously possessed. "I will destroy you, Red Eye!" the giant raged, blowing past Gai to target Kakashi again. His arms swung wildly, dragging his excess skin along, almost like a sail. Kakashi was hard pressed to dodge, especially considering how much chakra he had used to power the two Chidori strikes.
"Kakashi!" Gai shouted in alarm, noting how sluggish his friend's movements were. "Do not fear, I will not leave you to face this terrible foe alone!" The green-clad taijutsu enthusiast leapt forward, raining blows on Ōzumō's side. Though they didn't seem to cause any damage, they did slow the strikes enough that Kakashi's dodging grew slightly less frantic.
"Ready for one more, Boss Man?" Anko cried as she and Kō prepared to enter the fray. "One last Thunder Punch and we can call this a day. We'll slow him down for you."
"No!" Kakashi's unexpected shout drew the pair up short. Did he want to get clobbered to death? "I've tried running lightning chakra through my kunai, but it still won't cut. His skin is just too flabby." Ducking under a blow as Gai continued to rain punches and kicks on the titanic form, Kakashi continued. "All of you, retreat. I'll be right behind you."
His companions' dubious expressions told Kakashi that they didn't understand his plan, but they apparently trusted him enough to follow his orders. Anko and Kō disappeared first, and then Gai broke off a moment later, sending a worried glance his friend's way. "I'll be fine, Gai," Kakashi assured his most energetic comrade. "I just need to check one thing, and then I'll catch up. It'll be just like our last trip to the Land of Necks." Gai's black eyes lit in sudden understanding, and he flashed a gleaming smile at Kakashi before disappearing out the room's heavy metal door. Gai would tell the others the plan.
"You will not escape me Red Eye," Ōzumō grinned menacingly. "Now that I know the secret of bypassing the Wall of Weakness, nothing will prevent me from hunting you down. And once I have killed you, I will hunt down your master, the other Red Eyes, and all your pets."
"You have to catch me first," Kakashi replied evenly, cartwheeling over the giant's next ferocious strike. The monster's words continued to worry Kakashi, but Ōzumō presented too large a threat to interrogate. Landing on his feet, the silver-haired Jōnin raced out the door and down the tunnels of the complex. Finally, he came to the entrance passageway and looked over its collection of seal and weapon traps. His earlier assessment had been correct, Kakashi decided. These sealing tags would drain chakra from whatever touched them. They lacked the elegance of a master's brushwork, but the sheer quantity of seals laid out here would likely make up for the diminished effectiveness and the inevitable duds. As he heard the giant tearing through the hallways behind him, bellowing oaths of pain and vengeance, the young Hatake tore himself from inspecting the seals, crossed his fingers, and channeled chakra to form a Kage Bunshin. It was time to test the theory he had been forming while fighting these monsters. Once it took shape, the duplicate raced through the hand seals for the Henge no Jutsu and morphed to assume the form of Uchiha Fugaku. As Kakashi leapt to hide in the shadows, the disguised clone positioned itself at the front of the tunnel and assumed the ramrod-stiff posture that Kakashi associated with the clan head.
No sooner had Kakashi hidden himself from sight than Ōzumō charged around the last tunnel bend, yellow eyes gleaming with rage. At the sight of the stoic patriarch, the misshapen giant howled with renewed fury. "So, the chief Red Eye has grown tired of hiding and comes to taunt me again in person? I will tear you limb from limb for your lies!" With that, the misshapen form leapt to tackle the transformed clone, completely forgetting the trap-laden corridor behind it. The duo fell backward and landed roughly in the middle of the hallway, causing the Uchiha lookalike to disappear in a puff of smoke and launching a hail of kunai, which fell harmlessly from Ōzumō's baggy folds of skin. Deprived of his intended prey, the bewildered giant looked around frantically, finally taking note of the position into which he had launched himself. He lay in the center of a death trap, sealing tags littered over every surface and dozens of projectile traps ready to skewer anyone foolish enough to trip them. Additionally, where the giant's flabby skin had touched the seals, the disgusting, pulsing flesh seemed to crack and whither, shrinking onto an increasingly emaciated form.
Seeing that the beast was temporarily contained, Kakashi dropped from the shadows. "You know," he called calmly from the edge of the tunnel. "A ninja must learn to see through deception. You're no ninja, but I would have expected Orochimaru's experiments to understand that, to some extent. You couldn't tell that the clone was under a Henge, could you?"
"Red Eye!" the monster raged, rising to his feet, and preparing to leap back towards the Hatake. His charge was interrupted as a kunai buried itself in the dirt several inches in front of him.
"If you take another step, you'll be skewered," Kakashi informed the monster dispassionately, returning his throwing hand to his pocket. "Looking at your skin, I don't think you'd survive another volley." Ōzumō scowled at the assessment and began instead to tear the sealing tags from where they had stuck to his body. "That might be part of why Orochimaru abandoned you," the young Jōnin theorized, noting the ugly burns and exposed muscle that the tags left behind when they were torn away. "You lack any discernment. You can't even tell that you're killing yourself by removing those, you make snap decisions paying no attention to your surroundings, and you couldn't detect my transformation. Even children become uneasy when someone around them is disguised with a Henge, and my clone was intentionally leaking a lot of chakra. You may be powerful, but as a military asset, you're far too easy to fool, so I can't trust your comments about the Sharingan or the people who set you free."
"I'll kill you, Red Eye," the former giant cried out as he once again prepared to leap towards Kakashi, the bellow from before replaced with a raspy wheeze. "I am Ōzumō the Resilient-"
"Not anymore," Kakashi cut across the declaration. Feeling his team appear beside him, the Copy Ninja reached up and slid his hitai-ite down over his Sharingan. "Now, you're just another one of Orochimaru's failed experiments: something that temporarily stood in the way of rescuing my little brother from your master. You won't be the last obstacle, but we won't be stopped by any monster, trap, or shinobi the Snake comes up with."
Kakashi was silent for a moment, watching as the suddenly gaunt form charged unsteadily into the mess of traps, which immediately rained sharpened steel onto the giant. After the deluge had finished, Kakashi continued, regret tinging his voice as he watched the bloody Ōzumō fall to the floor, his suddenly frail form pierced by a rain of metal. Ragged breathing gave way to a pathetic gurgle as the monster's life seeped away. "For what it's worth, I hope that this brings some peace to whoever you were before this." As he turned back to the facility's interior, Kakashi took one final look at his defeated foe. "Goodbye."
Turning to his waiting team, the young genius began to issue orders. "Anko, you're the most flexible of us; see if you can get that body from the hallway. I want to send it to the village for an autopsy. Gai, Kō-san, fan out," the Copy Ninja directed. "Collect every scrap of paper you can find. We have two objectives now. We still need evidence of where Orochimaru has taken the kids, but Hokage-sama will also need to understand whether this facility was raided by the Uchiha and if so, what for."
Wordlessly, the rescue team nodded and set to work scouring the facility, desperately hoping the answers they needed were hidden somewhere inside and dreading what those answers may be.