'Thoughts/Signing/Written Words'

"Speaking"

"Seal Symbols/Words"

Flashbacks

Disclaimer: I own nothing from Masashi Kishimoto. Enjoy!

Chapter 14

It was dark. She could barely see past her nose. Looking over her shoulders, the young two-year-old child shivered when she found nothing but cold air behind her. She was back in the Space of Nothingness. Lips trembling with fright, she brought her shivering arms out in front of her. Feeling nothing, she moved them to the sides to find empty air. Dragging a hesitant bare foot forward, she was relieved to feel solid ground. The last time she was here, the ground caved underneath her. Moving her arms around her, the child slowly began walking. With each step, she could feel her legs shake as her fingers and toes got colder. After what seemed like hours, she saw a red glow in the distance. This was the first time she has seen this happen within the Space of Nothingness. Despite it being so far away, she could feel warmth coming from it. Hopeful, but slightly apprehensive, she walked towards the light.

She yelped in fright as the red glow disappeared only to stand right in front of her. The red glow turned out to be a creature that towered over her. It had human like arms and legs, but its body was covered in thick black jagged scars. These scars moved and shifted each time the creature breathed. From the darkness was long blood red colored hair trailing on the ground behind the creature. She followed the strands of hair up to gasp as the tops of the hair started glowing the same red glow that had attracted her earlier. While the glow warmed up her skin, the face of the creature made her insides run cold. Under the long bangs, she could just make out two pupilless, white glowing eyes. They were staring at her with a cold and calculating gaze. Her eyes widened as the creature's lips elongated into a grin that went from ear to ear, displaying two rows of sharp pointy teeth. She tried closing her eyes to will the creature away but found that her eye lids were forced to stay open. As the creature raised an arm up, she winced at the glowing purple claws on the creature's fingertips.

"Hello Human Earth child," the creature's cold but melodic voice greeted as it placed a finger underneath the child's chin. The terrified toddler sucked in a breath as the creature's face drew closer until their noses touched. "Unfortunately, we do not have time. This will hurt."

The creature started glowing a soft white color. The creature leaned closer to the toddler and placed its surprisingly warm forehead on top of hers. She yelled out in pain when she felt a burning sensation travel throughout her back then to the rest of her body.

Sora burst up from her futon, gasping for air. Crouching, frozen in front of her was a pair of familiar light brown eyes behind an Anbu porcelain mask. "Fujiwara-san?" he asked worriedly as he tightened his hold on her shoulder.

Feeling the warmth of his hands, Sora forced herself to calm down as she whispered uncertainly, "Frog-san?"

Frog nodded as he gently let her go. He asked, "Bad dream?"

Sora hesitantly nodded, unable to speak. She rubbed her chest to calm her racing heart as she took in his attire. Frog was not wearing any shinobi uniform. Instead, he was wearing civilian clothes. Sora frowned at his disheveled appearance. His shirt was buttoned up wrong, and he was missing one side of his slippers. Looking around her, she realized that she was still in the guestroom of the Yondaime. Sleeping to her left was Fox, Crow, and Neko. To her right was Sparrow, Raven, Crane, and Swan. She felt three souls on the roof tops belonging to the guard platoon. Their souls had perked up in interest. A noise behind Frog caught her attention. She looked behind him to see ten more Anbu in similar states as him. All with disheveled appearance, and in civilian clothes. Some were even shirtless, displaying bandages wrapped around their torso.

In a low voice, she asked, "Does Bear-san know that you guys are here?" Frog winced in response and rubbed the back of his head. Sora sighed as she watched Rat rifling through her things. "It's in the bottom drawer of the dresser."

Rat turned to give her a nod as he opened the drawer to pull out a blue scroll labeled, 'Bedding.' He opened it to insert chakra into the words "Futons", "Pillows", and "Blankets". As the items appeared, Sora looked back at Frog. He nodded his gratitude towards her. Sora smiled back before warning him, "If any of you get caught, you're explaining to your higherups."

Frog winced and nodded. As he went to prepare his futon, Sora looked down to see that she was dressed in one of her sleeping yukatas. Carefully getting up, she felt her legs quake a bit under the weight of her body. When Sora placed a foot in front of her, she stumbled a bit. Feeling the concerned stares of the Anbu members, she gave them a reassuring smile as she successfully made it off the futon without falling. Feeling a tired soul flicker awake, Sora looked over to Raven. He was warily looking at the opened window before turning his gaze towards Sora. Sora nodded at the unspoken request and walked towards the window. She reached up to place a seal over the window before pulling it down to close it. Sora smiled slightly as Raven's soul relaxed as he went back to sleep.

Seeing that everyone was in their futons, Sora quietly slipped out of the guestroom and into the bathroom. Closing the door behind her, Sora walked towards the sink. Turning the cold water on, she placed her palms on the edges of the sink to look at her reflection in the mirror. Three red marks appeared. Frowning, she cupped her palms underneath the running water. Lowering her face, she splashed her face in hopes that the cold water will calm her nerves. Splashing it one more time, she lifted her head to look back into the mirror. The red marks were starting to disappear as she turned off the water. With water now dripping down from her face, Sora saw her folded white towel still on the stool. Grabbing it to pat her face dry, she looked out the window to see that the sun had yet to rise. As she turned towards the door to exit, her feet stepped on something soft. Looking down, she saw the yukata that Hinako had given her, and Team Ra's clothes scattered across the floor. Grabbing the clothes, she exited the bathroom and back into the guestroom. Sora lips twitched in amusement when she heard the snores from the now sleeping Anbu. Sora walked towards the coffee table and dropped Team Ra's clothes next to it. Walking towards her dresser, she draped her white towel on the changing divider. A small black circle appeared between the changing divider and the rack of clothes. Sora dropped her dirty yukata into the hole like seal. As it closed, she crouched down to grab a spiraled notebook, a pen, and a scissor from the bottom drawer of her dresser.

Walking back to the coffee table, Sora pointed to the ceiling. A seal of an image of a lightbulb in the middle appeared as a bright light beamed down to the coffee table and the surrounding walls. Sora quickly twisted her fingers counterclockwise. The beam of light got smaller until it just focused only on the surface of the coffee table. Opening the notebook to the first page, she placed it down on the left side of the table with the pen and scissor. Pulling a brown vest from the pile of clothes, she laid it out flat in front of her she ran her fingers along the sides of the vest. She paused to jot down something in her notebook. Once done, she placed the vest on the floor to the left of her and reached to pull out another brown vest from the pile. Sora kept inspecting each vest until she reached the last one. As she ran her fingers on the last vest, she frowned. Reaching over to the scissor, she cut a piece off the vest. Pushing the clothes towards the wall with her left leg, Sora placed her left palm on the tatami floors. A single black line appeared to form a rectangle. She placed the piece of fabric she had cut in the middle of the rectangle. The lines broke apart to reassemble itself into different symbols before realigning themselves to form a thicker rectangle. In the top left corner of the border was the image of a water lily. The bottom corners had two arrows. One was pointing left, and the other right. Sora furrowed her eyebrows as a thick black ring surrounded the piece of fabric.

As she waited for the seal to complete its identification of the toxins on the piece of fabric, Sora took out a dark red scroll from her sleeves. Sora unsealed a thick book and the document she had yet to sign. Looking the document over one more time, she frowned. 'Nothing adds up,' she thought.

Opening the book, she placed it on her lap as she grabbed her notebook and the document. As she compared what she wrote down to what was printed in the book and proposed in the document, she narrowed her eyes. Grabbing her pen, she wrote at the very top of the unsigned document, 'UNDER INVESTIGATION!'

Sora resealed everything into the scroll except for the thick book. On the bottom of the scroll, to the left of the image of the Capitol Building, was the seal "Reply". Sora tapped on the seal as Lord Todiyori's message disappeared to reveal an empty area. Sora wrote:

Lord Todiyori,

I hope you and the rest of the delegates are well. Thank you for informing the other delegates of my safe arrival to Konohagakure. I appreciate that you and the other delegates will stand by my side despite the traditional contract being enacted.

The first night spent with Hokage-sama and his family was wonderful.

Your Fire Daimyo,

Sora Fujiwara

P.S. Can you thank Tana-san for me for taking care of Chujitsuna-san as well as his reminder? Hokage-sama's wife made ramen for dinner. I remember him telling me once that gyoza was often paired with ramen, so I purchased a some to take to Hokage-sama's family.

P.S.S. I have reviewed most of the documents and attached them in the communication scroll. I say most because I found some discrepancies with one of the documents that are a cause for concern. The document I am referring to is the proposition for new uniforms for Konoha's shinobi forces. I need the documents relating to shinobi uniforms from our archives, as well as the accounting ledger that shows how the funds for the uniforms were distributed for the last twenty years.

After ensuring that all the documents were still sealed inside the scroll, Sora softly murmured, "Don't be mad at them."

From the corner of the room, a tall man with broad shoulders stepped out. He had on a white porcelain mask of a bear. Standing next to him was another man who wore his forehead protector like a bandana over his head. "Your men are pulled thin, on edge, and, quite frankly, exhausted," Sora continued as she felt a couple of souls flicker awake.

Bear briefly looked over at the eleven Anbu who had entered the Hokage's home uninvited. Sora did not look up as they both sat down in front of her. "You're not projecting out towards the whole house," Bear stated matter-of-factly as he narrowed his eyes at the seal on the ground beside her.

Sora glanced at him in surprise before closing the dark red scroll and placing it in her sleeve. "I wasn't aware."

Sitting beside Bear, Ibiki frowned his eyes at her. Before he could say something, Sora muttered lowly, "Hokage-sama, Hatake-san, please do enter."

The guestroom door opened to reveal the two men. Minato was dressed in black sweats and a black shirt, while Kakashi was in the same clothes he had on when he appeared while she was bathing. As they entered the room, Minato's and Kakashi's eyes widened slightly. The small light coming down from the seal on the ceiling was enough for them to make out the shapes of the room. Before, the futons that were occupied by Team Ro, Sora, and Team Ra had covered a majority of the floorspace. Now, there was enough room for at least eight more futons. What surprised the two the most was that next to the Daimyo's possessions were eleven Anbu who were sleeping. Each one was snoring. Some louder than others. It was a tall tell of how tired they must have been. All Chunin and above were expected to sleep soundlessly as not to give away their position. Most Genin had not quite gotten the technique down.

As they walked towards Sora, the rest of Team Ro stirred awake. They blinked in surprised to see many of their comrades in the room. They had not sensed any of them entering the room at all. Seeing his team's reactions, Kakashi looked at Sora in wonder.

Curious as to why Bear and Ibiki was here, Minato asked, "What are you two doing here?"

Ibiki glanced behind him and answered, "We had some questions."

Minato tensed and nodded. As they went to sit next to Bear and Ibiki, Sora stood up to place the coffee table behind her and tucked the pile of clothes underneath it. Sitting back down, Sora placed her fingertips on the edges of the rectangle seal and dragged it in front of her and the others. Minato's eyes widened at the seal on the floor with a piece of fabric in a black ring. As Sora tapped underneath the ring, an image of a raven perched on a branch appeared. Bear asked curiously, "Is that the Toxin Identification Seal?"

Sora nodded as Neko, Fox, and Crow stood up from their futons to sit to the left of their captain. As they sat, Sora felt the guard platoon's souls shift. She did not look up as Tanuki, Mouse, and Robin sat on Ibiki's right side. All three souls were curious.

Not bothered by the new additions to the room, Minato, Bear, and Ibiki continued analyzing the seal. Bear stated, "You've made some improvements."

"I did," Sora muttered. "The previous version was only able to identify toxins in the body. This version can identify and quantify each toxin in the body. It can also locate where you can find said toxin throughout the nations. Using this information, I can create an antidote if need be."

Everyone looked at Sora in amazement. Sensing Bear's soul flicker in hope, she stated, "I'm not making it available to the shinobi populous, Bear-san." Sora lips twitched when she felt Bear's soul deflate in response.

'It's not fool proof,' she thought as she tapped on the water lily image.

The black ring and piece of fabric shifted to the right while an image of a bear appeared on the left side. Looking up at them, she said, "I need a few volunteers."

Everyone looked at her confused. Kakashi studied her before nodding, volunteering himself. Ibiki and Bear did the same. Sora smiled gratefully at them. "Thank you. I need your vests."

"Vests?" Kakashi asked, confused.

"Your flak jackets," she clarified.

They all tensed. Kakashi looked at Minato, who nodded. As they took off their flak jackets, Sora asked, "Does everyone wear the same flak jacket regardless of rank?"

Minato studied Sora and nodded. "Besides myself and those Genin ranked, everyone is issued one."

Sora nodded as she took the flak jacket from Kakashi, Bear, and Ibiki. They watched as, one by one, she pulled the flak jackets every which way. "How many does each person get?" she asked as she got to Kakashi's flak jacket.

"Two, but we can issue more if necessary," Minato answered.

"Good," Sora said as she cut a piece of fabric off Kakashi's flak jacket with her scissor.

Everyone stared wide eyed at Sora as she placed the fabric next to the black ring on the seal. They watched as a thick black ring encircled around the fabric she had just placed down. Tapping underneath the seal, an image of a scarecrow appeared. Narrowing her eyes at the ingredients, Sora look up Kakashi. "Hatake-san, have you've been on any missions in the same locations as Raven-san recently?"

Kakashi stiffened in response. Ibiki frowned. "What is this about, Sora?"

"I need to test something out," Sora answered as she handed back their flak jackets. Looking at them, she said, "I need you to put it back on, but I have to feel certain areas of the flak jackets. Will you all be okay with that?"

Everyone nodded as they placed their flak jackets back on. "Raise your arms for me?" she asked.

One by one they rose their arms, being careful not to hit the person that they were sitting next to. Each time their arms were raised, Sora would reach over to run her fingers along the sides of their flak jacket. Frowning as she jotted down more notes, she thanked them then asked, "Hokage-sama, who manufactures the flak jackets for your shinobi?"

Minato frowned and answered, "That responsibility was given to the Village Elders."

"Aah," Sora said quietly. "That makes this difficult."

Minato looked at her and asked, "What do you mean, Daimyo-sama?"

Sora looked at him and answered honestly, "While I do not wish to insinuate anything, Hokage-sama, but there are major manufacturing errors in the flak jackets."

Everyone looked at her with wide eyes. Sora handed her notebook to Minato. "Your flak jackets take on more civilian clothing features than shinobi." Using her pen, she pointed to a diagram she had drawn of the flak jacket in her notebook. "There's a seam running down on both sides. This is normal for civilian clothing, and even typical for shinobi uniform. However, for the flak jackets, there shouldn't be any seam here. This creates thinning of the protective padding between the two fabrics that encases the padding."

At his confused look, Sora grabbed two flak jackets from underneath the coffee table. She gave him one and kept the other. Everyone took off their own flak jacket in curiosity. "This is Sparrow-san's and the one I gave you is Swan-san's. Right now, it feels like there should be enough padding to protect the sides. But once you put it on, the fabric shifts to accommodate the size of the person wearing it. Almost like a one size fits all. This shift in fabric makes the sides vulnerable to direct attacks."

Everyone felt around their own flak jacket and put it back on to feel their sides. "She's right," Tanuki muttered in disbelief.

Placing a sliced opened end towards her, Sora parted the two thin fabrics with two fingers to reveal the padding. Pulling out some of the material, she informed them, "Flak jackets are required to be filled with padding that is made of 80% Kevlar and 20% strengthened nylon. These are the same materials used when making protective fishnets. Instead, in all the flak jackets that were cut opened, they were filled with regular cotton. This material is common for padding in civilian vests, futons, and what not."

Sora positioned the flak jacket up against her chest. Placing her right hand at the top to hold it up, she pointed to the middle of the collar area with her left hand. "To protect the neck and collar, there is a guard for each area. However, the materials are made of nylon and cotton, rather than nylon and Kevlar. With these softer materials, that's probably why it was so easy for me to slice open Raven-san's flak jacket with his kunai."

She ran her fingers down the seam towards the bottom, "If you follow the seam," Minato followed her movements while the others watched, "you will come to where the bottom seam meets the side seam. You can barely feel it, but there is a tiny area in which the fabrics had to be hand sewn together to attach everything. This is where the protective padding is almost nonexistent."

Gesturing to the seal on the ground, Sora pointed to the image of a raven and said, "I pulled this piece off from Raven-san's flak jacket." Pointing to the image of a scarecrow, she continued, "On Raven-san's flak jacket, there was a needle like hole in the tiny nonexistent padding area. Hatake-san's flak jacket had that same hole in the same area."

"A senbon?" Bear asked.

"Possibly," Sora answered. "There's more." Sora tapped on the images of the bear, raven, and scarecrow. Three ingredients glowed above each ring. Sora continued, "Everyone on Raven-san's team was poisoned, but Raven-san was the only one with a secondary poison. The kill time for the poison that everyone had was three hours. However, the secondary poison in Raven-san's system cut down the kill time to thirty minutes."

Bear and Ibiki tensed. 'That's why they were in here,' Bear thought. Seeing her giving him and Ibiki an apprehensive look, he asked, "What else did you find, Sora?"

"Bear-san," Sora muttered as she looked up worriedly at him, "The poison on Raven-san's and Hatake-san's flak jackets are almost the same as the one you and your team had when we first met."

Bear and Ibiki tensed as Minato's eyes widened. 'She was the unknown civilian that helped them in their report,' he recalled.

"Are you sure?" Ibiki asked in outrage.

Sora straightened and looked at Minato, "The only way I'll know for sure is to have Hatake-san's blood tested. From there, I can see if there are any toxins that matches with the others."

Kakashi looked at Minato, who nodded. "Kakashi will do it," Minato said. "In fact, everyone should do it too just in case."

They all nodded in agreement. Ibiki asked, "Can you do all of us at once with the seal, Sora?"

Sora nodded as she dragged the three rings closer to her. Placing her thumbs and index fingers on the borders of the seal, she slid her fingers outward. Everyone watched as the seal widened until it was within arms distance in front of everyone. Sitting up, she instructed, "I just need a drop of everyone's blood inside the seal."

They all pulled out a kunai or senbon. At Minato's nod, everyone stabbed their fingertips with their weapon of choice. Putting them away, they all watched in surprised to see smoke coming off the blood from Minato, Tanuki, Robin, Mouse, Bear, and Ibiki. "There's nothing in your system that indicates any toxins in your body," Sora informed them.

They were not able to feel any sense of relief as four black rings appeared around all of Team Ro's blood. When words began to appear above the rings, Sora minimized the seal to bring the rings closer to her. Tapping underneath each ring, four images appeared. Comparing each list of ingredients, Sora organized them into a line. "Bear-san, do you remember how I thought that the poison was the final formulation?"

Bear nodded.

"I was wrong," she said. "The poison you and your team had was most likely the test before the final version." Bear and Ibiki tensed as they watched her tap on the images underneath the rings. Three ingredients glowed golden above the six rings: berries of the rosary pea, berries of the devils-and-angels, and berries of the deadly nightshade. "These are the same concentrations as the poison found in you and your team. It's the same for Hatake-san and the others too. The only thing different are the last ingredients."

Sora tapped on the last ingredient above the ring with the image of a curled-up fox underneath. The words above the rest of the rings dropped down as the rings disappeared. The only ring that stayed was the one with the curled fox. It moved to the bottom corner of the seal as a map of the five nations appeared. Little purple dots covered the map. There were some dots along the mountain ranges of the Land of Lightening, and a few scattered across Land of Wind. Minato narrowed his eyes at the high concentrations of purple dots in the Land of Fire. "This combination with the seeds of the lily-of-the-valley affects the chakra system. In shinobi, it affects the user's ability to sense chakra."

Ignoring everyone's surprised reactions, Sora tapped on the right arrow, the ring with the fox disappeared. It was replaced by a black ring with the image of a sitting cat. Tapping on the last ingredient, green dots appeared. A few were in the Land of Water, but many were around the borders of Land of Fire. "This combination is odd. Normally, bark from the yew tree is not handled because they are already toxic. However, used in this combination with the other ingredients, it decays anything at the cellular level." Sora looked at Minato to give him a pointed look, "When I say anything, I mean anything, such as wood, stones, metals. You name it, this combination will cause it to disintegrate with just a small amount."

Everyone tensed while Hound quickly glanced over at Neko in worry. Minato noticed and looked at Neko as well before watching Sora tap onto the right arrow again. The ring with the image of the cat disappeared and was replaced by two rings. One had an image of a scarecrow, and the other a crow with a small twig in its mouth. "These two are the same poison," Sora said as she tapped on the last ingredient. Red dots appeared all over the Land of Wind and the Land of Fire. "The leaves of the big sagebrush are known to be quite harmless. However, in high concentrations and with this combination, it can erode the chakra connection between the brain and the optic nerves, making it quite dangerous if left untreated for dojutsu users."

Minato's eyes widened as he looked at Kakashi and Crow in worry. 'Someone knows each of their abilities well enough and are targeting them specifically,' he thought. 'Who would know them that well?'

Bear looked at Sora. "Can you create the antidotes?"

"I can, but it may be difficult," Sora answered. "I need to look at the blood sample of the very first human test subject." Everyone looked at her in surprised. "Bear-san, the goal of these poisons is to kill slowly and overtime. The person who created it probably wanted to be discrete about the poison. Based on the progression of the poison, I have reason to believe that the person started first testing with the ingredients that everyone had in common before specializing it."

Sora tapped the left arrow to stop at the ring with an image of raven underneath it. Dragging it to the right corner, she tapped on the left arrow again. An image with a bear appeared. Dragging the bear to the left corner, she tapped on the last ingredients from both images. "Raven-san has the same last ingredient as the one found in your team: fruit of the redoul. But it's at a higher concentration." Brown dots appeared throughout the Land of Water, while a few were at the border between the Land of Waterfall and Land of Fire. "This combination attacks the lungs," Sora continued. "The most common symptom is a random cough that would've started out of the blue. Then, it'll progressed to more consistent coughs throughout the day, which further develops into coughing during both day and night. The person we're looking for would have coughed every five to ten minutes and experiencing major sleep deprivation. If left untreated, the person could start coughing up blood, then parts of their lungs. By this time, it'll be untreatable."

Feeling their soul flicker in slight recognition, Sora stated, "You already know someone with these symptoms."

Tanuki looked at Minato. "Go," Minato said as Tanuki disappeared. Minato frowned at the map and looked at Sora, "The medics had said it was an illness they couldn't cure. Why didn't they pick up on the fact that it was a poison instead?"

Sora tapped on the three ingredients that all the rings had in common. Red dots appeared throughout the entire map, but there was a high concentration in the Land of Fire. She informed them, "These are common wild berries that grow throughout the Land of Fire. They look very much like the ones that are safe for consumption. Eating just one of any of these berries can cause drastic damage within your body. However, consuming these three specifically all at once does more than damage your body. The compounds inside the berries morph into different compounds as the body digests the berries. These newly formed compounds mimic the natural compounds that the body produces, bypassing the body's defense system. Not only can they do that, but these compounds are also capable in masking other toxins from detection from chakra if they have been crushed together, such as what must have been done with the fruit of the redoul."

Everyone's eyes widened. "Something like that can happen?" Minato muttered.

Sora grimaced and nodded yes. "It's quite common for civilians to accidentally eat the poisonous wild berries every year. At the capitol, the hospitals and clinics are staffed only by civilians, so they've developed a blood test that checks for any irregular concentrations of the naturally occurring compounds in the body. If the results come back positive, there's a good chance that someone ate a poisonous berry. Now, every time a blood sample is tested, it is automatically tested for these irregularities to rule out accidental poisoning."

"Speaking from experience?" Ibiki asked with an eyebrow raised at her. He had noticed her grimaced earlier.

Sora's face reddened nodded sheepishly. "They looked enticing when I was younger. Luckily, it was only the rosary pea."

Opening the door to his apartment, Genma saw Hayate sleeping on his sofa with a spare blanket half draped across him, and the other half falling towards the floor. Genma silently apologized to his old-time friend. It happened to be one of those rare times Hayate got some sleep before the need to cough woke him up. Genma walked towards him and gently shook him awake. "Come on, Hayate."

Hayate groggily opened his eyes. As he brought his hand to cover his cough, he looked up in confusion at the tanuki mask. He uncertainly asked, "Genma?"

Genma nodded. "Hurry, Hayate. I might have found someone who knows what's wrong with you."

Hayate looked up at him confused. "But the medics said that it was a chronic illness that was uncurable."

"I know," Genma said as he placed his hands on top of Hayate's shoulders. "I just want to be sure, okay?"

Hayate looked at Genma and sighed. He nodded as he coughed again. "Let me get ready. Anbu uniform okay?"

Genma nodded. "Bring your prescription too, just in case."

As soon as Hayate was ready, they disappeared. Down the hallway, three pairs of eyes watched them worriedly. "Let's go back to sleep," said one of them. The other's followed suit.

Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, Hayate looked curiously at Genma as they neared the Yondaime's home. Genma gave him an encouraging nod as he led Hayate toward the guestroom. Coughing again, Hayate walked into the room and was surprised to see a lot of his comrades sleeping on the floor, as well as some sitting underneath a window with a beam of light coming from a seal on the ceiling. He nodded at them in greeting. Minato waved him over to sit next to him as everyone moved to make room.

"Daimyo-sama," Minato said, "this is Kangaroo."

Sora looked to see a short man with a Kangaroo mask on. His flak jacket looked one size too big for him. Sora saw him tense slightly, as if trying to hold something in. "Kangaroo-san, I apologize for meeting you under these circumstances." Kangaroo nodded in understanding. Sora continued, "If you need to cough, do so."

Kangaroo looked at Minato who nodded in confirmation. Minato informed him, "We have reason to believe that the cause of your uncurable illness is actually due to poison."

Kangaroo eyes went wide as he quickly looked at Tanuki. Tanuki nodded his head. "Daimyo-sama needs to run a blood test to compare it to the others."

"Others?" Kangaroo muttered as he coughed slightly behind his mask.

Tanuki nodded. "A few of us were poisoned and we're trying to track down who the first human test subject was."

Hayate's eyes widened. "And you think the person was me?"

Tanuki nodded.

Kangaroo looked at Sora and asked, "What do I need to do?"

Sora instructed, "I just need a drop of blood inside the seal."

Kangaroo grabbed a kunai and pricked his finger. As the blood dropped onto the seal, a black ring surrounded it. Sora thanked him and brought the ring closer to her. Tapping on the bottom of the ring, the image of a kangaroo appeared. Looking at the words appearing above the ring, Sora asked, "How long have you've been coughing, Kangaroo-san?"

Kangaroo answered, "When I was about five."

Sora nodded. "Are you on any prescription?"

He nodded and reached into his side pouch to take out a medicine container and handed it to her. "The medics thought it was a chronic illness that was uncurable. They prescribed me this to relieve the pain."

Sora read the ingredients and narrowed her eyes. Looking at it, she asked him, "Can I take one out to be identified?"

Unsure by what she had meant, Kangaroo hesitantly nodded his head. Twisting open the cap, Sora shook one into her palm. Closing it back up, she placed the pill next to the black ring. A black ring wrapped around the pill as words started appearing above it.

Sora asked, "Who gave this to you exactly, Kangaroo-san?"

Kangaroo tensed. Before he could respond, Bear asked, "What's wrong, Sora?"

Sora growled out as she placed the medicine container in front of Bear. "These pills are not helping Kangaroo-san. If anything, they are hindering his body by further lowering his immune system. It is slowly killing off every cell in his body, including new lung cells that are trying to heal the damage caused by the fruit of the redoul." Kangaroo gaped at her in surprised. Sora looked at him, "You need to stop taking these pills immediately."

Kangaroo nodded as Sora began to cross reference the ingredients in his blood with those of the pill. After a few minutes, Sora muttered, "He's the first." Everyone tensed as Sora placed her fingertips on the ring and twisted it so that Bear and the others could read it. "All of the concentrations of the ingredients are equal in value, including the fruit of the redoul. This practice of having an equal amount of ingredients is pretty common if one wants to test a mix for the first time."

Kakashi looked at her suspiciously. She knew too much about poison, and their effects on the body. He asked, "How do you know this?"

Sora answered, "Tree Leaves sells herbal tea mixes. I have to be careful with what ingredients I use and how much I put into each mix. If I'm not, then I can accidentally poison my customers."

Kakashi nodded, 'That makes sense.'

Bear looked at her and asked, "Can you create the antidotes with this?"

Sora nodded her head yes. "Now that I have the starting point, I can easily work my way towards the more specialized combinations."

Bear nodded as Sora set to work. She placed Kangaroo's blood sample at the start of the line. She tapped on the image of the water lily and started to look at the ingredients that were pulled from the Medicinal Drawer. She tapped each black ring and they started to glow red. Pressing each of the images except for the raven's image, glowing blue words replaced the red words. Sora reached into her sleeves to pull out a blue scroll labeled 'Kitchenware'. Opening it she tapped on the seal, 'Glass Cups'. As four glass cups appeared, she placed one cup above each of the glowing blue words.

"Unlike your comrades, Kangaroo-san," Sora warned Hayate, "you have to play the long game. If you drink the antidote all in one go, your body will go into shock."

Kangaroo nodded in understanding as Sora placed an amber glass bottle with a cap. Tied around the glass handle was a black string. After placing it above the blue words with the image of a kangaroo, Sora tapped the bottom of the border of the seal. As the entire seal glowed, everyone watched in amazement as the cups began to fill up with a silver liquid.

"Given as we do not know who is poisoning your comrades, I'm taking precautionary measures, Kangaroo-san," Sora said as Kangaroo nodded in agreement. "I'm going to place multiple seals on the bottle. To none the wiser, it'll just be as if it's a normal liquid medicine bottle."

Sora picked up the bottle and placed a seal along the side of the bottle. Turning the bottle around, she showed the glowing words to Kangaroo. "You can key in other people's chakra into this seal so that if you ever need to take the antidote, but you are unable to get the bottle, they can grab it for you."

"There is another seal inside the bottle to keep track of how much you've already taken. It also keeps the antidote sterile each time you open it." Kangaroo nodded as Sora tilted it forward to show the cap. It had the image of a wisteria tree embed into it. "This is another seal. It is a notifier as well as a space conserver. If the other seal does not recognize the person holding the bottle, this seal will notify me, and the contents of the bottle will be destroyed. If this happens at any time, I can always make you a new one."

Kangaroo looked at Sora in surprised. Sora continued, "To conserve space, all you have to do is tap on the image," Sora tapped the wisteria tree and the bottle shrunk to the size of her thumbnail. Holding onto the black string, she said, "This way you can wear it as a necklace or loop it around someplace safe during a mission. The string is made of the same material as the protective fishnets with a piece of wire running through the fabric." Sora tapped on the wisteria tree again and the bottle grew to its original size. Sora handed the bottle to Kangaroo. "Take one cap full once per day until the bottle is empty," she said. "Once done, you can get a medic to heal any damage done to your lungs. You can start now if you'd like."

Kangaroo nodded as he opened the bottle and poured some into the cap. Everyone else looked at the silver liquid with doubts. They all looked at one another as they moved their masks to the side to down the antidote. Despite them not showing any reaction, Sora lips twitched when she felt their soul lurch over as if they were throwing up.

As Kangaroo closed the bottle back up, the others placed the cups back. Sora hovered her hand above the seal on the ground. Everyone watched as the seal faded away, taking the cups with it. Sora covered her mouth with her other hands to yawn slightly as she turned to look out the window to see the sun just barely rising. Everyone watched as a beam of light from the ceiling narrowed to a circular spot on the floor. Before Sora could get up, Bear placed a red monkey mask on the floor in front of her.