Against the World

"Trust. For ninja, it is both a necessity and something we can not afford."

-x-

The man walked with confidence. He walked like he was exactly where he was supposed to be. He stood tall, but kept his shoulders relaxed. His strides were long and even. He didn't smile, but he was careful to keep his face "neutral" rather than "blank." He was just going about his day, perhaps a bit bored, not hiding anything.

As long as he looked like he belonged and knew what he was doing, no one would question him. It was one of the most important lessons he had ever learned.

It was much less suspicious to confidently go somewhere you weren't supposed to be than to sneak in, especially in these circumstances. Because he did actually have proper clearance to be there. He just didn't actually have a good reason to be. If someone questioned him he had an excuse ready, but it would still cause problems and draw attention to his presence. It would make it more memorable. Something for people to check into later on. No, it was better if he was left to his own devices. Better for people to perhaps remember seeing him, but have no idea why he'd been there in the first place. It was probably just routine business.

-x-

Twenty One

The signal to retreat came as if Itachi had been reading my mind. A high pitched whistle coming in bursts. Coordinates, three sets. The final destination and two rendezvous points along the way. We were heading south east, towards the other coast of Hot Water. Even without running from enemies it would be quite the trip.

I wondered what was there. Another base? Allies? Was it just a random place to run to and hope for the best? It didn't matter, Itachi said that's where we were supposed to go, so that's where we were going.

I could only hope Cloud hadn't figured out the code we used for our signal.

Unlike the last time we retreated, there was nothing to cover our escape. Itachi obviously didn't think that fire jutsu of his, Amaterasu, was enough to stop all those people, and he couldn't afford to end up in that exhausted state. Instead, we were forced to fight as we fled.

I grabbed two kunai from my pouch and checked the general area behind us for allies. If any were present, they were completely surrounded by Cloud nin, and were unlikely to be able to disengage and escape. I silently apologized to any Leaf nin behind me and threw the kunai as hard as I could. Cloud nin easily dodged them, but that was fine. Thirty seconds later, the explosive tags on their handles detonated, taking out everyone and anything in a thirty metre radius of each kunai. I could feel the heat of the explosion behind us, but we were already far out of the blast radius. By my estimate, I'd probably taken out at least thirty people with those explosions. At least a few of them were probably allies. (I would have to process that later.)

I threw two more with similar results. After that, there was little point in continuing with the explosives. We were breaking off into small cells to escape, and Cloud was breaking into similarly sized pursuit teams. Explosives would just give away our position, acting as a beacon to the other Cloud nin. Using them might as well be saying hey, we're over here!

My team was joined by two other Leaf ninja, the other surviving medic and a very large man who I believed to be a special jounin. I had sparred with him a bit on base. With my chains and genjutsu, I was best suited to covering the five of us while we ran. I ended up on the back of the special jounin so I could focus entirely on defence, while Sakura took the lead with Aiko and the second medic close behind her.

I didn't know the name of the second medic, but he was a young man with dark hair and incredibly talented with senbon and a jutsu that multiplied a single senbon into a shower of them. Combined with my liberal use of multi-target genjutsu, we were able to pick off or slow down a good portion of the Cloud nin coming after us. My multi-target genjutsu might have been relatively low level and a large portion of those I hit with it broke out of it like nothing, but repeatedly casting it on the same targets slowed them down, the senbon caught the ones who were still ensnared, and the four chains I released from the seal kept the rest at a distance, batting away projectiles as needed.

Meanwhile, Sakura punched through anyone and everything in front of us. More than one she created a path for us where before there had been none.

We ran for hours. The second medic and I were popping soldier pills like candy. Near constant use of four chains and multi-targeted genjutsu was a massive drain on my reserves, and that senbon jutsu seemed to deplete the medic at a similar rate. The two of us were undoubtedly going to crash hard when all of this was over. I wouldn't be surprised if we were out for weeks. Fortunately, Sakura had a bottle of supplements on hand to take with the soldier pills, so that would at least allow us to keep using them for another two or three days like this before the side effects of the two pills caught up with us.

The supplements were one of Sakura's original creations, inspired by the too frequent need to take an inadvisable number of soldier pills. They were jam packed with calories, and infused with chakra to help the body immediately turn them into fat, which meant more fuel for the soldier pills to use in chakra production. The down side was that in their current state, they severely screwed up the body's natural metabolism and ability to process food. Without medical intervention it would take weeks for my body to start digesting and processing food properly.

I wasn't too worried, though. Sakura would be able to take care of it before it seriously fucked me and the other medic over, and it was preferable to being dead.

Over the hours we'd lost track of the other Leaf nin, so it was just the five of us against our pursuers until we rendezvoused at the first set of coordinates, near the shores of Lake Hibara. Despite how many we killed, it seemed like there was always another team right behind the last, right on our tail.

At least we had moved deep into the forest now, which left us less open and gave us a terrain advantage. Few were as adept at running through trees as Leaf ninja, and it helped us create some distance to give us some breathing room, allowing me to completely pull back two of my chains.

Another hour of running in the woods allowed us to pick off our closest pursuers. I was sure that there were still Cloud nin after us though, and if we stopped running it would be just a matter of time until they found us.

We would reach Lake Hibara soon. Hopefully we weren't too late and everyone else had already come and gone. No one could afford to linger at the rendezvous point for too long, a couple minutes at most if they were in a situation like we were, where there was some breathing room. The idea was that it should take everyone roughly the same amount of time to reach it, and if someone had lost most of their group they might have the chance to join with another. It also kept us from getting too far away from each other on the way to our final destination.

-x-

Itachi and four others were waiting for us when we arrived at Lake Hibara. And they were quite obviously waiting, judging by the mutilated corpses nearby. I supposed that if anyone could afford to wait around it would be Itachi.

"Good, you're the last we're expecting." he said in place of a greeting. "Sekai-kun, eye contact."

He had his sharingan active, but I met his eyes without hesitation. I barely noticed them swirl into a new shape before I felt myself get caught in a genjutsu. It was eerie. Things stayed the same, but lost colour except for the sky, which bled from yellow-orange into crimson, and the people around us who faded away completely. Instinctively I tried to break it, but found that even with my extensive training in breaking high level genjutsu, I couldn't.

"Please don't, the more you resist the more this drains me." he said wryly. "The genjutsu has a time dilating effect. We can spend days talking and only a second will actually pass outside of the genjutsu."

"Sorry," I said, not really meaning it but halting my attempts to break the genjutsu. He would have been disappointed if I didn't try. "What do you want to talk about then?"

"First, a few teams have already found us, but we took care of it." he informed me. "However I would still expect a good portion of their forces to pass through here once we leave. Do you have seals prepared that might be handy for trapping? Ideally something to go off after we've had enough time to get clear of the area."

I frowned, and thought about it. I could easily whip something up like that, but I didn't really have the time to. The only premade seals I had on me were explosives, and most of those were primed to go off a minute or two after I applied chakra. I had maybe three with a longer delay intended for trapping, which would go off after about twenty minutes.

I told Itachi as much, and he frowned. "That will have to do. Give them to me then take your group, and run as fast as you can towards the next check point. You should make it there around midnight."

I nodded. "Anything else?"

"What is your group's condition?"

I sucked in a breath. "No major injuries on any of us. Some bruises, cuts, and scrapes are the worst of our physical injuries. However... Sakura's had three soldier pills, Aiko has had two. I've had seven, five of them taken with Sakura's supplement—you've heard about that right?" I asked. The supplement's experimental status meant few were aware of it, but I suspected Itachi would be. My suspicions turned out to be correct, so I continued. "The other medic with us has had four doses of soldier pills and supplements as well. I don't know what he might have taken before he joined us. I wouldn't be surprised if he had another pill or two on top of what I've seen. The big guy hasn't taken anything since he joined us."

Itachi frowned. "Seven?" He sounded both surprised and concerned.

I shrugged a shoulder and looked up at the deep red sky. "I took two before you ordered a retreat. After... We've had a hard time escaping. After we killed that one storm release guy they've been really coming after us, and running hasn't stopped them. We've been relying heavily on my chains and I've been spamming genjutsu at whoever gets close while the big guy carries me. The other medic has been using some jutsu to multiply his senbon that's pretty draining, too. It was only a couple hours ago that we managed to get some space."

His frown deepened. "How many teams?"

"Since we started running? I'm uncertain, it didn't seem important to keep track. At least a dozen, probably. They were usually teams of three or four."

"That's... concerning." Itachi brought hid hand up to his face, covering his mouth. He rubbed his thumb across his cheek, apparently deep in thought.

"...Is that not normal?" I asked when the silence dragged on.

He dropped his hand. "No," he said bluntly. "It's not. I'm faster than you, but even taking that into consideration, I only had to deal with a quarter of that. In theory I'm the biggest threat and the one in charge. I should be the one they focus their resources on. That they've dedicated more to anyone else is concerning and unexpected. They very specifically are after your group, though I don't know why. That's a problem."

"Is it because we took out that storm guy?" I suggested. "That's when they really took notice of us on the battle field."

"Partially, maybe, but that wouldn't be enough to justify that many... a dozen teams? That's forty to fifty of them specifically on you. The fact that they kept actively engaging instead of just tracking you even after you took out so many of them says a lot." He explained. "They took notice of you when you took out one of their major players, yes, but on the battle field it was because you had proven yourself to be an active threat. They needed to take you out for their own safety. If that was the only reason they wouldn't have sent a dozen teams after you when you fled, unless they felt the risk that you'd take them out was worth the chance of eliminating you."

When he put it that way... that was a lot. And it raised the question... "How many are after us? How many did Cloud send in the attack?"

"By the last estimate of our sensor before she died, about a thousand of them." Itachi answered grimly. "They came in three waves. First was two hundred, then two waves of four. When we ran they were down to about six hundred. Given what you've told me, I would say closer to five, now."

A thousand? That was... Probably close to five percent of their entire force. It was just further evidence that there was something going on. There was something special about Base 121 that I didn't know about. Considering my team was sent there, I had to guess that Leaf didn't know what was so special about it either.

"How many of us are left?" I asked, dread pooling in my stomach. If they sent that many... I had no idea how many of us were even left to run, and I was certain we lost some along the way. We'd started out with around two hundred, there couldn't have been many of us left.

"About twenty of us." he answered. I wasn't sure if that was better or worse than I expected. Twenty versus five or six hundred?

I didn't notice the panic creep up on me until Itachi knelt down and grabbed me by my shoulders, his fingers digging in painfully. His grip was all that kept me from collapsing.

"Sekai-kun, calm down. Panicking just makes it worse. We'll get out of this. Do you understand me?"

"H-how?" I demanded, clenching my fists around the hem of my shorts. "We can't fight off five hundred of them. No matter how good you are. We're tired. It's already been close to sixteen hours since the attack started and we're exhausted and no one has come to help and—"

My head turned with the force of the slap to my face.

"Listen to me Sekai-kun. Breathe. It will be okay. We're meeting reinforcements. Mist. They have a base a few kilometres off shore from the eastern coast of Hot Water. They'll be lying in wait at the second rendezvous point, and there will be a group at the final check in to take anyone who can't fight to their base. We're not alone." Itachi assured me, his voice warm and steady.

"We're not alone..." I repeated. I took a deep breath. "Okay. I can do this. Just a few more hours of running until we get reinforcements, then a couple more until we can rest."

"That's right, Sekai-kun." Itachi smiled and poked my forehead gently. "See? It's all going to work out."

"Right." I agreed. "Sorry. I—I don't know what came over me."

He shook his head. "It's a fair response. You've never been in a situation like this before, and things sounded pretty dire without knowing about our reinforcements."

"Still, I shouldn't have assumed none were coming."

"That's exactly what you should have assumed, actually." he assured me. "If you haven't been told reinforcements are coming you can't assume they will be."

"I shouldn't have panicked though." I argued. "I should have kept calm, I can't afford to panic, it makes things worse, like you said."

He sighed and sat back on the ground, gesturing for me to sit down across from him. I did so, and immediately began tapping my fingers across my knees restlessly.

"Stop being so hard on yourself." He reached out and grabbed my hands, stilling them and rubbing his thumb across the back of them soothingly. "You received a lot of information at once, and you're in a place where you have time to panic. I wouldn't have told you if I wasn't prepared for this reaction. Sekai-kun, this is a highly stressful situation that you were never meant to be in yet. You aren't prepared for this and you weren't expected to be."

I nodded in acknowledgement, and sighed. I needed to get my mind off of this. While I wasn't panicking anymore, I was still quite high strung. I needed to focus on something else. Something like...

"Do you have any ideas why Cloud is dedicating so many people to this attack, Itachi?" I asked, pulling my hands back. Itachi let them go easily. I returned to tapping my knee, though at a more sedate pace than previously. "I was under the impression the base wasn't terribly relevant, that we weren't doing anything particularly important."

Itachi looked at me, assessing, then shook his head. "Nothing concrete, to be honest. You're correct that the base itself wasn't of great importance. It was established primarily as a rest stop and for observation of the area. It was not of any particular strategic value. We have dozens of similar bases across the continent."

"So it's not us. It's them."

"Almost certainly. We're in their way, or they think we're a danger to them. I'm uncertain why. If I had to guess..." he paused, bringing his hand to his chin. "The biggest hint is likely the way they're going after your team. I'm not sure which of you has drawn their attention, but at least one of you has. Likely before the attack even began."

I pressed my lips together. "But that would mean they knew who we were. That's not common knowledge, Cloud shouldn't know about us."

"It's not." he agreed. "Even on base, it's known that you're a priority, but few know exactly how important you are or why. They believe the priority is because Aiko is a potential Yamanaka heir, Sakura is Tsunade's apprentice, and because you have some connection to me."

"So it's likely not because of what we're intended to be. It's who we are now." I reasoned.

"Most likely. They may be able to determine that Sakura is intended to be Tsunade's replacement, but that's it. Of your team, her skills and role are the only one easily extrapolated. While some may know you are adept with seals, they wouldn't know the significance of that. The only people on base who know of Aiko's doujutsu are myself and your team. It's possible they're after Sakura. Her medical talents are prodigious, and they likely want to avoid her reaching her full potential. One Tsunade is bad enough, but two?"

"So you think it's because of Sakura?" If I sounded skeptical it's because I was. If that was why they were going after us, it still wouldn't explain the attack on the base as a whole.

He shook his head. "No. It's a possibility, but a slim one, and it doesn't tie in to my theory that their motive for going after you and the attack in general are linked. Even if they take her out, they would just expect Tsunade to find a new apprentice. Sakura is already her second one. They'll assume she's replaceable."

"So we rule that out. They're not interested in Sakura." I concluded. "What about me? Any reason they would want me in particular gone?"

Itachi considered me carefully and took his time to answer. "We can rule you out using the same logic as Sakura. The abilities you demonstrated in the field indicate you're an Uzumaki, but that's not really enough to go after you this hard, and that wouldn't tie into a motive to attack the base."

"Maybe there isn't actually a connection." I suggested.

"That's possible," he acknowledged with a tip of his head. "But my instincts tell me otherwise. They wouldn't go after you so hard for anything else."

"So Aiko." I concluded, tapping my chin with a finger. "You said we're not common knowledge, even on base. So how would outsiders know about us? How would they know about Aiko, or any of us, if they weren't on base?"

"Yes, I believe we had a mole." he said grimly. "I don't know how else they could have made it past the bases defences to collapse it."

"What was common knowledge about Aiko...?" I wondered out loud, preparing to brainstorm. "Her clan, for sure. And that comes with a bunch of implications about jutsu she could use. That she's a priority of some sort..."

"Her position!" Itachi announced with a victorious smirk. "It wasn't a secret she was assigned to intel on the base. She's the last surviving member of intel."

Oh. Oh. Yes. That made perfect sense. Why didn't I think of that sooner? "They assume she knows something. Or at the very least has the pieces."

"I believe so."

"But if they infiltrated us then this isn't some sudden attack. It's been planned for awhile." I argued. "Surely any important intel would have been sent back to the village by now. And wouldn't you know the intel as well? You're third in command, right?"

Well, he was first now. The other two were dead.

"I don't read all the intel reports, just a summary. There's far too much to read all of it. It's possible it wasn't in the summary, and they were aware of that. And yes, any important intel would have been sent back as soon as possible. However if we didn't realize it was important, it wouldn't be. It's too much of a risk to send messengers carrying intel back to the village too frequently," he explained patiently. "We have to worry about them being followed and compromising the location of the base or worse, being intercepted. Instead we send an intel report to the village every seven to thirteen weeks. The next one was due to go out in three days."

"So they knew when the intel report was going out and that it wasn't in the summary. Who would know?"

"That's what the timing of the attack would indicate. Intel division, myself, Commander Aoki, his second, Hayashi."

I nodded. "So the infiltrator was one of them. I'm betting on Hayashi."

Itachi tilted his head. "Why?"

"I figure you would have noticed if it was Aoki, and Aiko frequently used her doujutsu on her coworkers. She very likely would have noticed if someone was a spy."

Itachi hummed thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "You're possibly right. I think you might be, though I also think it's possible Aiko missed something. She wouldn't have read more than surface thoughts, it's possible the infiltrator never thought about it around her. She's a Yamanaka. Even without knowing about her doujutsu, infiltrators would guard their thoughts around her, just in case.

"However, I haven't seen Aoki or Hayashi since the attack began. I assumed they died in the cave in, but now that I have time to think about it, Hayashi should have been on duty. He wouldn't have been in an area affected by the cave in, and he would have known the defences..."

"Sounds suspicious."

"Yes. I'll be sure to report it once we're back in the village, but at this point I'm more concerned with what they think Aiko may know." Itachi ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "I honestly can't think of anything. Aiko will need to do a full debrief once we're back in the village. They'll be going over her memories with a fine tooth comb... Possibly any survivors, so prepare yourself for that."

Ah, so Itachi didn't know I was immune. They wouldn't get anything helpful from my memories, so I doubt they would bother. I decided not to mention that to Itachi, and just nodded in acknowledgement.

"She may not actually know anything." I frowned. "Intel was treating her like a regular chuunin, they ignored her clearance level."

Itachi frowned. "They shouldn't have done that. Why didn't you bring this to my attention?"

I rolled my eyes and scoffed at him. "Everyone was treating us with kid gloves, we thought it was more of the same. I didn't want to be seen running to you with all my problems, everyone already thought I was your favourite. Taicho's pet."

"Next time tell me." he ordered. "Still, she may know more than you think, or even more than she thinks."

"We can hope." I muttered.

"The fact that we don't know why they're doing this indicates that we had something but didn't know it. Chances of Aiko knowing something are actually pretty high." He argued, and I had to admit he had a good point.

"Alright, new plan." he declared, changing tracks. "The others can set the explosives. I'll be joining your group until until we meet our reinforcements from Mist. You've been doing well on your own, but I'd rather be on hand to protect your team. I initially believed you'd be less of a target without me, but I was wrong."

"Okay." I agreed. "What happens when we reach the rendezvous point?"

Itachi hesitated. "That's up to you. You and your team can continue on until you reach the Mist base, or... you can let the others go ahead without you. We fought well together before, I would appreciate having someone I'm familiar with to watch my back. I would encourage you to consider your own well being first and foremost. I'm certain your team will be fine without you, but I don't want you staying if you aren't up to it. You've already taken a lot of soldier pills."

I pressed my lips together while I thought about it. Obviously Aiko couldn't afford to stay and fight, she was too valuable for that now. Sakura was better off going back to the base and resting so she could heal the survivors once things were over. But there was no reason I need to go to the base over fighting besides resting and a higher chance of survival.

The fact that Itachi was asking me to stay and work with him... it meant he thought I'd be useful and that he was confident he could keep me alive. I didn't need to be too concerned with my survival.

"If I get injured or tired, is there a chance to get to the base before the fighting ends?" I asked.

"Yes. As long as we can safely disengage, there will be someone who can lead us to the base."

"How much do you need me?" I asked. "Be honest."

"I will get by without you, but I would strongly prefer your presence. I believe I may need to use Amaterasu again, and I'd rather not fall unconscious without someone I trust present."

I took a deep breath and made my decision. "Okay. I'll stay."

He looked relieved. "Thank you. Let me know if that changes. I won't hold it against you."

I nodded. "Anything else we need to discuss?"

He shook his head. "No, just pass your explosives to the others so they can set them as soon as I end the genjutsu."

"Okay."

The genjutsu broke. Barely a heartbeat had passed.

-x-

Notes: I finally figured out why Cloud attacked the base! You might think I would have figured that out ages ago, but nope. If I didn't figure anything out I was just gonna play the "classified, Sekai never finds out" card. But I did so it's now a bigger plot point and like 50% of this chapter is dedicated to it.

In the databook I added some important characterization notes about jinchuuriki and bijuu. I'd suggest reading it, because it's going to be relevant in the future. I also made a few other updates. Caution for potential spoilers.

The second medic is using the shuriken (or in this case senbon) shadow clone jutsu, Sekai just doesn't know the name for it.

Sorry this is a bit short again. I just wanted to get something out and move the plot along.

I'm still busy with school, but holy shit I managed to get something out and it's only been like 6 weeks-ish.