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Chapter 48 - Tales of Umaru: Part 2 - The Second Night
The Genin were awake by the time Amaya returned to the inn. Together, the trio walked the short distance to their contact's house. The old woman in question sat outside on her porch, weaving a basket. She wore a simple, dark green yukata, which draped gracefully over her bare feet. Her silver hair was tied in a modest bun, and her face was creased with laugh lines and wrinkles which spoke to a good life hard-lived. A young, dark-haired girl with bright green eyes and slender fingers sat beside the woman, weaving a basket of her own.
The Jonin stopped and bowed. "Hamura, I presume?"
The old woman looked up from her weaving. "Can I help you, dearie?"
"We were sent by Lady Tsunade to help with the unexplained events."
"Oh, yes. We have been having some strange happenings lately. Haven't we, Yuna?" Hamura addressed the last part to the girl next to her, who only nodded shyly in response. "Why don't you go and put on a pot of tea for these nice folks who've come to help us?" After the girl scampered off, the basket-weaver returned her attention to the shinobi. "You'll have to excuse my granddaughter. She hasn't been the same since her parents died. Please, make yourselves comfortable."
The Genin arranged themselves to either side of Amaya, who knelt in front of the old woman. "Can you tell us about what's been going on? Do you have any idea who might be behind the thefts or murders?"
"Well, of course I know. It's a bakeneko. We've angered it somehow."
Sakura tilted her head, confusion furrowing her brow. "But those aren't real. They're just a story to scare little kids." She glanced at her sensei. "Right?"
"Well," the tattooed Jonin said, hesitant to insult Hamura, "that's what most people believe. But there's no evidence either way."
"What can they do?" Naruto was curious now. He liked old superstitions.
"Oh, lots." The old woman counted off fingers as she spoke. "They can bewitch a man, cast illusions, take human form, throw fireballs and other magic. We've been trying to placate it with gifts, but it hasn't worked. Tsunade must have gotten that confused, though. There haven't been any thefts."
"But there have been people blacking out and two murders, right?" Amaya put in. She knew this woman believed in such tales, but she wanted to try and keep the Genin rooted in fact. It would do them no good to chase shadows.
"One was a young girl that would help me weave sometimes. Poor girl. And the other was a middle aged man, the best weaver in the village."
Yuna came back with the tea then, so their conversation halted as all enjoyed the warm beverage. Once they were done, Hamura told the ninja about the blackout victims, how they often destroyed their own baskets or tea pots. Amaya decided to have each Genin search for clues on their own while she went to the doctor to speak with him about the deaths. As the shinobi went their separate ways, Naruto wondered if he should've said something about the cat he'd seen last night but decided not to. A cat was just a cat, even if the old woman blamed a bakeneko for the village's ill fortune.
Sakura shivered as she walked back to Hamura's house. She'd always been creeped out by the scary stories people told and this was no different. Bakeneko were never nice. They were supposedly cats that had lived too long with one family or cats with tails that were too long. They could transform into humans they killed, often hiding the bodies so they could take the deceased's place. They could do magic and any number of different things. Obviously, the villagers believed the stories. No cat she'd seen today had a long tail.
The sun was setting fast, so she walked with a little more urgency. The people she'd talked to hadn't helped ease her fear. None of them remembered destroying their work, their livelihood, but others had witnessed it. All anyone really seemed to know was that there were always paw prints near the scene of a blackout.
Rounding a corner, the Genin saw Amaya sitting alone on the porch. "Where's Naruto?" She sat beside her sensei, wrapping her arms around her knees.
"Not back yet," was the Jonin's only response. She was lost in her own thoughts about what she'd learned from the doctor. No marks on the bodies except teeth marks on the back of the neck. Inhuman teeth marks.
"Senseiā¦."
Sakura's hesitant tone brought the auburn-haired nin back. "Hmmm?"
"All this superstition stuff got me thinking. That...dream you showed me before we became Genin. Did you show us the future?"
"I drew from your memories to show you what could be. If you wanted it. But it was by no means the only future I could've shown you. I could've shown you ending up with Sasuke or Naruto. Hell, I could've shown you with Kakashi. What I'm trying to say is it was a genjutsu. Nothing more. I'm sorry I didn't explain sooner. I thought you'd realize it was only an illusion." The Jonin frowned. If Sakura believed her, had she unintentionally set Naruto and Sasuke down paths they thought were fixed? She'd have to talk with Naruto later.
"Oh, okay. It just seemed so real." The pink-haired kunoichi let out a relieved sigh. It wasn't that she didn't like Rock Lee a little, maybe; she was just glad to know it was her choice to feel that way.
Amaya put a hand on her student's shoulder. "It was meant to seem real. I wanted you to see that there were possibilities beyond Sasuke."
"I'm glad you did. I stopped obsessing over him after that. Or tried to. I only really stopped after that training session we had."
"The effort shows, Sakura. Would someone weak and dependent want to become Lady Tsunade's apprentice?"
"No," the Genin said, twisting one of the weighted bracelets her sensei had given her what felt like years ago. She still used it when she trained, enjoyed the feeling of overcoming their random shifts in weight. "You know, when I tried to stop Sasuke from leaving, I didn't cry, didn't beg. Just asked if I could do anything to get him to stay. Before he knocked me out, he...thanked me."
"It was his way of letting you know he appreciated what you were trying to do. He was trying to let you know you're important to him. He could've gone about it better, but that's Sasuke for you."
Sakura stared at her shoes, not quite sure how to say what she needed to. She took a deep breath and tried anyway. "Sensei, I...saw him today."
"Sasuke?"
"Yeah, several times actually. Always for a second or two. One time, I even chased him for a bit. Am I...going crazy?"
"No. All this superstition has been making you paranoid, that's all. Nothing that doesn't happen to the best of us." Amaya smiled reassuringly. The Genin lifted her head and returned the smile.
Running footsteps interrupted their slowing conversation. Naruto came into view, skidding to a halt in front of them. "There's been another murder."
Amaya examined the wounds on the corpse's neck by lantern light. Night had fallen on the walk to the crime scene. The middle-aged man had died from a bite to the back of the neck, forceful enough to puncture his spinal cord at just the right place. She rose to her feet and let the doctor take the body away. She led the Genin away from the gathering crowd.
"So what killed him?" Sakura asked, dreading the answer.
"A human, that's for sure."
"But," Naruto protested, finally beginning to be spooked by the rumors around the village, "we saw paw prints. And those teeth marks looked like a cat's to me."
Amaya shook her head. "There's enough cats in this village that any one of them could've wandered by before the body was found. And the marks were just used to cover up the original puncture wound. Probably the killer found a cat skull and sharpened the teeth."
"So the rumors are wrong?" Sakura asked.
"Yes. But we've another problem. That man was Hamura's son-in-law, the husband of her second daughter. Someone is killing people close to her, so she might be a target. Naruto, I want you to go back to her house and watch over her and Yuna. Sakura, I need you to go and stay with Hamura's second daughter and her young son. They'll need protection too."
"What about you, Sensei?"
"I'm going to track the killer."
Naruto yawned as he made another circuit of the house. It was a few hours until dawn, with no sign of suspicious activity. All he wanted to do was sleep. He stopped dead, though, when he heard footsteps on the porch. Peering carefully around the corner, he sighed; it was only Yuna.
The shinobi joined her, sitting so he could keep an eye on most of the approach points to the house and talk to her at the same time. "You're up early." He paused. "Or late. I'm too tired to know the difference." He covered another yawn with his hand.
"I like to look at the moon. It'll be full tomorrow," she said, never taking her eyes off the white disk in the sky. She unconsciously smoothed her white, flowing nightgown.
"Hamura said something happened to your parents. I was just curious, if you don't mind my asking. I never knew mine. They both died the night I was born."
"How sad. My parents died when I was seven."
"How'd they die?"
Yuna lowered her eyes to meet his. "I killed them." Her soft laugh carried in the night after a few moments of stunned silence. "I had you going there, didn't I? They got sick, my mom first then my dad. I tried to save them, but I was little. What could I do?" She stood then, offering the Genin her hand. "Come on, I want to show you their graves. So we can pray for them together."
"I really shouldn't," Naruto said while he scanned the still-quiet streets. Then again, nothing had happened all night and he couldn't just let her go off on her own. So he stood and took her hand and the pair walked into the dark streets.
"What do you mean he's gone?" Amaya questioned Sakura softly, trying her best to hide her anger and fear. And to not direct them at the Genin; it wasn't her fault. It was already nearly noon. Naruto had been missing for close to five hours.
"He's just gone. I came back here after the sun rose to check on everyone and Hamura was frantic. Yuna's gone too." The young girl was having less success hiding her feelings.
Amaya bit her thumb, made a few hand seals, and passed her student a mouse. "Take Shiro with you. If you find anything, he'll let me know." Performing the seals again once Sakura had run off, she huffed as Mamoru's mate, Masota, appeared in his place. "Where's Mamoru's?"
"He's busy," she squeaked. "He'll join you as soon as he can."
"Did he at least see what happened to Naruto?" She sent the summon to check on the Genin around dawn, just to make sure they were all right.
"No, but he went to get help after he realized Naruto wasn't there."
Amaya slid a hand down her face. Why hadn't the summon come to her? "Whatever. Just tell him to join me as soon as he can." Masota nodded and disappeared in a tiny puff of smoke. The nin sighed, exhaustion dragging at her body. The killer was nowhere to be found, though she'd searched high and low. She'd been desperate enough earlier to ask the old Iwa nin if her knew of any criminals in the area, but when she went to him, his house was decrepit and the garden nothing but overgrown weeds. Neighbors said the house had been empty for years.
The Jonin didn't know what was going on in this village, but she didn't like it. Someone was playing with their minds, hers and Sakura's. And now Naruto was gone. There were forces at work the auburn-haired nin didn't understand, but nothing, nothing, would stop her from rescuing her Genin.
