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"Which way?" asked the male Anbu Officer, adorned in a tiger mask, racing ahead of Karin.

"To the left and further ahead," Karin said, her breath ragged as she struggled to keep pace with her handler and the two Anbu Officers accompanying them over the flat lands at a frantic rate. She was exhausted at this point, having been running around all day.

Tiger sped forward while making seals and then slammed his hand into the ground. Earth chakra sank below and then warped the soil beneath the chakra signature that they had been chasing. That newly formed stone then began to ascend an explosive rate, forcing the signature upwards until he broke through the surface.

The prisoner, a man with black hair and a rugged scar, then proceeded to turn in the air towards the chasing party. Karin sensed he was sending chakra into the stones that he had in the palm of his hand and destabilizing them. "I'm not going back to prison!"

"Look out!" Karin shouted as he tossed them. They broke off to the left and right before the stones exploded from the inside out. Falling at an angle, the stone shards had enough momentum to punch through the hard-packed dirt as they rained down.

The prisoner then landed while making hand-seals to mold his earth chakra before he slammed it into the ground. The abundant amount of chakra spread over a wider area in a mere moment. The soil was collected, hardened, and transmuted into shaped stone just beneath their feet.

"It's an area-wide attack!" Karin shouted before a series of blossoming stone spikes rose into the air like columns in an attempt to skewer them all from below.

He looked towards Karin, eyes narrowed in realization. She felt him gather chakra into his hands before thrusting it into the nearest structure. The act caused the chakra holding the stone spikes to collapse into soil once more, creating a vast dirt cloud that obscured their vision and hindered their ability to breathe.

Choked for breath, Karin felt his chakra signature rush towards her while coated in a secondary layer. She couldn't scream or shout a warning without suffocating either while in the dirty veil. So she tried to run away with her eyes closed towards Anko's chakra signature.

Her handler took notice apparently, since a pair of serpent-outlined chakra signatures coiled around Karin before pulling her out of the lingering cloud of dirt at a surprising speed. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes to see the growing silhouette, which Anko flung a trio of kunai at. They bounced off as he cleared the earthen veil, revealing he was clad in stone like armor, while sliding along the ground that became mud at his feet—intending to kill Karin to ensure his escape.

Tiger promptly proceeded to erect a wall of earth in front of the beeline charge, tripping him up as Anko grabbed Karin and darted to the side. His stumble was brief and the prisoner quickly got back onto his feet. But that was a moment too late as the female Anbu, Bear, rushed in with a pair of chakra blades that crackled with lightning. She rammed them into his chest, and Karin felt his chakra signature die out even before Tiger followed up by taking off the escaped prisoner's head with his sword.

Karin sighed as it was finally over, falling to her knees in exhaustion and relief that she was still alive. Not only had she done more than her fair share of running, but that hadn't been the first one who tried to take her out when they realized she was the one responsible for tracking them down. She really wasn't suited for the front-lines.

"Good work," Anko said as she passed a ration bar to Karin while the other two proceeded to deal with the corpse. "That makes five today."

"That was terrifying," Karin said as she unwrapped it, musing on the events of the day. That was a miniscule amount given the sheer number of escaped prisoners of war, but they had enough squads and other shinobi available that each of them catching that amount was enough to significantly dent the majority that was still around. The rest had likely fled the Land of Fire by now and were a less immediate concern. "Even the last one didn't get that close to me or get this far away."

"He wouldn't be a former Jounin if he couldn't do that much." Anko shook her head in disappointment as they finished sealing the corpse up, head and all. "I recognized him from some time ago, but he used to be one of ours until he got caught trading secrets to Stone. The war was over and his service record was good enough that they opted not to execute him."

And apparently the prison was considered bad enough that he opted to try and fight his way out than go back, Karin thought silently. Her Mind's Eye was still active to observe for anyone getting the drop on them, which was why she picked up the serpent-shaped mass of chakra slithering their way. She presumed that it was one of Anko's summonings, given that she had sent the corpses sealed in scrolls off to the village with them and each one had a unique signature that she hadn't felt before. "One of your snakes is on the way back."

Her handler's reaction to that was to give her a mildly confused look, before narrowing her eyes and signaling the two Anbu Officers. "Which direction?"

Karin raised a brow in alarm. "From the village's direction… is there something wrong?"

"My summonings have orders to disperse after reaching the village gates and passing the scrolls along to the shinobi waiting there. They don't return that way."

The meaning behind that clicked in her mind right before the chakra within the serpent flared and suddenly became one that she recognized with the arrival of even more signatures from a summoning technique. Then pain blossomed up her leg like thorns sprouting from inside her as the Seal of Subjugation activated. Karin fell down screaming, exhaustion and hunger forgotten in the wake of unyielding agony and fear.

[0-0-0]

The sight of the body-encompassing markings spreading across her red-haired charge made it abundantly clear to Anko what was happening. She had been briefed on both how Karin got that Curse Mark and how it was triggered the last time. So she knew the proper thing to do was to lower the girl to the ground gently to avoid causing her any unnecessary pain.

"The snake channeled Kabuto's chakra just now and summoned four different chakra signatures," Karin explained while rigidly lying still to avoid setting it off. "They're coming after me—he must've done something to mask it until it was close enough, since he knows how it works."

"Then focus on reinforcing the seal the Hokage gave you to stop it so that we can move," Anko said before she proceeded to perform a summoning of her own to call forth a snake-eater. It was a rather large serpent by normal standards, resistant to poison, capable of tracking, killing, and devouring smaller snakes easily. She gave it the command to hunt down the snake responsible triggering the Seal of Subjugation.

"I'm trying! But I can't until the snake making it flare up is dealt with and they'll get here before yours reaches it. One of them is coming from underground even now and another is spitting a mass of chakra out of their mouth and shaping it into—I think a bow and arrow that they're getting ready to fire!"

Tiger took the warning as a cue to raise a stone wall roughly twice their height to act as a bulwark, believing that it would be enough to stop the projectile. That was proven false when said arrow drilled through the wall with enough force that a significant amount of it shattered on impact. And then it kept going and bore a hole through Tiger's torso that Anko could see through before he fell down dead.

She bit back a swearword before Karin shouted a warning in time for her to jump back from the emerging pair of hands from the ground. The bear-masked Anbu shoved the lightning-filled chakra blades into the ground and then discharged them as an electrified web, dealing both damage and inhibiting the earth chakra that allowed the assailant to move freely. At the same time, kneading fire chakra into her lungs, Anko spat out a wall of flames to buy them precious seconds to grab Karin and run before two more figures broke through the fire to give chase.

The pained screaming in her ears from the girl she was carrying over her shoulder, due to the black tendrils of electricity ravaging her, did not help as they ran. But if they stayed and fought, then they ran the risk of her being taken. That was unacceptable since the Hokage entrusted the girl to her care. "Try and wrap your chain around yourself, see if that can help!"

She was hoping that if it nullified foreign chakra it would likely do the same to the invasive chakra that stemmed through the markings covering her body. Of course, that became a moot point when a melodious sound reached their ears from a flute. In the wake of the Invasion, they immediately took that as a sign of a Genjutsu being cast and reacted appropriately since a moment's hesitation could mean death.

Both Anko and Bear used their chakra to block their ears, stopping yin-chakra from entering them through sound waves. However, it was at the expense of one of their major senses. That would make escaping much harder unless they dealt with the flute-player.

Exchanging a glance with the Anbu Officer, Anko made a series of hand-signals and received a nod in response. Then she whirled around and jumped back while extending both hands towards the pink-haired flutist and the young man who had half his face covered by his hair. Snakes burst from her sleeves towards them a second later.

Stretching and slithering through the air, over a dozen serpents speared out from within the sleeves. Their pursuers split apart to avoid being bitten by the venomous fangs and Bear rushed in while drawing her sword. She attacked the flutist with her blade while Anko kept the other one at a distance with the striking snakes, and in the exchange she managed to destroy the flute with a well-placed slash so they could use their ears again.

However, the ground beneath them began to flip over like a massive table before they could press the advantage and kill the disarmed flutist. The wall that had been raised was then shattered from the opposite side as a stout figure broke through it, creating a rain of boulders that forced Anko to break away and run with Karin, who was no longer screaming in pain. Had she fallen unconscious?

"Tayuya, get them!" Anko heard the pale blue-haired young man order as he tried to avoid the tendrils of lightning that the bear-masked Anbu unleashed as she held back both him and the stout newcomer. "You're useless here!"

The newly-identified Tayuya let loose an indecent string of words as she threw down the halves of her flute and then chased after Anko.

Even carrying her charge, Anko was faster than the pink-haired young woman at full-speed. As things stood, with the flare of lightning from another technique showing that the fight behind them was still ongoing, she could escape. She then addressed Karin, who was hanging over shoulder, to check if she was conscious or not. "Hey! You doing okay back there?"

"Y-Yeah!" Despite saying that, there was a notable discomfort in her voice. "I have the chains wrapping around my ankle small enough to avoid messing with your chakra, and it's suppressing it from hurting me, but I can't keep it up forever."

"The snake I sent out to kill it will get the job done soon enough and that should cause it to retract. Can you tell me how the fighting is going on the other end?"

"Uhh… the woman from Anbu is fending them off for now, but I'm not sure how long she can last. The one who shot the other is outside of my range, while the chakras of the two that she's fighting are a bit off. I think one of them actually managed to absorb and attune some of her chakra to his when he hit her just now, and the other guy feels like he has two bodies in one—I think it's a bloodline."

"Make sure you take in everything you can! The information will be crucial when we get back to the village!"

"Yes ma'am—" Her voice abruptly cut off and tension threaded her body before she spoke again. "The woman chasing after us is activating a Curse Mark!"

"What?"Anko looked over her shoulder to see that Tayuya's figure was slowly being encroached by black lines. They expanded over her frame, dyeing her skin an earthen hue while her hair grew longer and wilder. Combined with the horns jutting out of her head and her eyes becoming a mix of yellow and black, it gave her an inhuman aura.

"Now you're mine!" she roared as the altered form increased her speed explosively. Crossing the distance between them despite their already breakneck pace, she lunged to tackle the pair.

Before impact, Anko tossed Karin into the air while trusting that she would be able to land safely and then summoned more serpents from her sleeves to entangle and restrain Tayuya. These in particular were a myriad of different skin tones—each having a different kind of poison to ensure they killed their prey. They lashed out with their venomous fangs and elongated bodies, only for their fangs to break against her skin and their bodies to be ripped apart by the sheer strength she had.

Reaching out and grabbing Anko by the forearm with inhumanly strong fingers, Tayuya put strength into them. That alone managed to break the bones with an audible crunch. Then she mercilessly used it to swing Anko overhead and then slammed her into the ground hard enough to knock loose a pained cry.

Gritting her teeth from the pain, Anko used her other arm to bring a kunai around and flung it towards the transformed woman's dark eyes. Even if the flesh was tempered, she suspected that the eyes were still vulnerable to sharp, pointed steel. Unfortunately, Tayuya avoided it by moving her head to the side.

"Nice try, worm." She squeezed the broken forearm as she lifted her back into the air, sending sharp jolts of pain surging through Anko that was only topped when Tayuya delivered a punch to her stomach that knocked the breath out of her. Dropping her to the ground, leaving Anko curled and clutching her stomach, the transformed flutist then chambered her leg to kick her while she was down.

Straining for breath, Anko could only look up as the foot came around. The only reason the swing went wide as it neared her head was because her assailant was abruptly jerked back. A chakra chain was coiled around Tayuya's throat, courtesy of Karin standing on the other end. She was free of the markings but looked nervous all the same with the chain coming from an outstretched hand.

"You think this weak chain can hold me!" she said in a tone that promised pain as she clutched at the chain around her throat and pulled. The chain barely budged, leaving her to go wide-eyed as her hand and upper-torso began reverting back to normal. "What the—"

Anko tackled the younger woman with her good arm, shoving her elbow against the back of Tayuya's head to leave her face down in the dirt. She then looked up to Karin and tried to tell her to wrap her entire body in chains. The words wouldn't come out because of the punch to her stomach leaving Anko barely able to breathe, let alone speak.

But the message carried as Karin unleashed a second chain that speared through the air and coiled around the legs next as the one around her neck slithered and spiraled downwards. Not even five seconds later, Tayuya was completely bound on the ground. Then Karin came over, snapped the ends together to connect them, and saw Anko's arm.

"I don't like people doing this, but I just felt the Anbu woman's chakra signature die out and making that many dense chains has left me almost out of chakra." She crouched down and presented a spot of unblemished flesh on her left arm. "You need to bite me so we can keep running."

Anko bit down and strength filled her. Broken bone snapped into place, bruised muscles healed, and torn flesh mended good as new. She got to her feet, ignoring the shuddering moan of guilty pleasure that left the younger girl looking embarrassed when it was over, and then went over to the bound prisoner spewing profanities.

"Just wait until I get free, you—" Her threats were silenced as Anko kicked her in the jaw hard enough to knock her out. Then a trio of serpents with paralyzing venom emerged from her sleeve and bit Tayuya to make damn sure she couldn't move when she woke up.

"They're not going to stop chasing us just because we have a hostage," Karin said, looking off in the distance. "We need to go."

"We also need to know how they found us in the first place and where they came from. Otherwise it'll happen again later on." Anko finished performing hand-seals for a summoning. The moment she slammed her hands onto the ground, a snake that was roughly half Karin's size in height appeared. "Take the prisoner to the village."

She watched as the snake bobbed its head in understanding before it curved around, opened wide, and swallowed the foul-mouthed woman whole before sinking under the ground as though it was water. The stomach of the mole-snake could fit a single person inside to transport them underground, only breaching to refill the makeshift holding cell with air. But it was uncomfortable for the person inside on all accounts, as anyone who'd been swallowed whole could attest to. Even if she woke up from that kick in a few minutes, the poison would leave her unable to move and the chains would leave her unable to use any technique until it spat her out at the village gate.

Satisfied, Anko then grabbed Karin again and started running as quickly as she could. They were still a long way from safety.