Unsung Story of the Inconspicuous

A/N: and here it is. This freight train of a chapter. It killed my brain, but goddamnit I did it. And now the next one is also going to be a braincooker. Curse you, Naruto!

Don't own, won't profit.


There was someone in the camp.

Raiku expected the next time she woke to be to Yamada's frightening grin and his hand on her shoulder. Instead, she woke suddenly, for no real reason that she could discern. It was still pitch-black out, so she hadn't overslept. There was no sound, other than the quiet rustling of leaves and the occasional cricket chirp, so that wasn't it. But for some reason, the silence felt heavy instead of peaceful.

She tilted her head and squinted blearily at the fire, trying to tell by how far it had gone down how much time had passed. She couldn't make it out- the other shinobi was standing at the edge of the camp, but it was too dark to see. The world swum dizzyingly when she attempted to look at the edges of it that were visible from her angle; her vision swimming in and out of focus in a dark fog. She tried to blink the sleep out of her eyes and felt a sharp pain stabbing into the back of her head that made her put a hand up reflexively to cradle the side of her skull, wincing groggily.

She tasted iron, felt her arm moving slowly and only half making it up. She squinted at her fingers and curled them into a fist- or she would have, but they just twitched. She heard a strangely distant crackle, saw light flicker through her glove, but it felt wrong; dreamlike. She couldn't feel it. She couldn't feel it. Just a numbness, bone deep.

Dazed, she struggled to lift her head and only managed a centimetre or so, to try and see where everyone was. She could see the back of Ryuu's head, a vague silhouette made by the dimly glowing embers. Raiku licked her strangely dry lips and drew breath to speak, but the effort burned. Her lungs were aching, air shallowly filling her them and escaping too quickly in faint, high-pitched pants.

Wavering in and out of focus, she could just barely catch glimpses of two other people sleeping on the other side of the camp, which didn't make any sense, because-

There was someone standing in the camp.

A deep fear started crawling up from her stomach into her chest, gripping her heart and making it pound in her ears. Something flickered in her peripheral. She prayed desperately for it to be one of the others, for it to be someone she knew. But she couldn't turn her head; her limbs felt leaden, not responding, leaving her trapped in place. The flicker turned into a silhouette that trod slowly and easily around their belongings and the other shinobi, silently. Deliberate. Measured. Unstoppable. A nightmare coming inexorably towards her and her friend.

It stopped. The dark figure slowly tilted its head. Her frantic heartbeat sped up until it was almost one long, continuous sound. Fear choked her.

They were standing over her teammate.

Considering the sleeping Ryuu, silently. Just standing there and watching him sleep while she couldn't do anything about it and Ryuu was so completely defenceless. Her fear was morphing into an intense panic and helplessness. She couldn't move. She couldn't use her powers, she couldn't do anything and

"Speedy."

Raiku jolted awake with a gasp so sharp it hurt, fingers clutching at the fabric over her throat. Two enormous hands settled heavily on her shoulders and Yamada's face swum into focus in the dim light of the embers. 'Speedy,' he repeated more softly, lacking in emphatic grammar. 'You alright?'

Raiku stared at him for a second in mute, lingering horror, the sounds of the forest filtering gradually in. 'I... There was...' Her eyes were darting over the camp, never settling in one place. 'There was someone,' she managed, throat oddly hoarse even in her whisper to her leader.

Yamada looked at her very seriously, right into her light-emitting eyes. 'Where?'

Raiku shuddered slightly, vestiges of her fear slowly settling back into her mind. 'They were here, I just... I just saw them.' As consciousness crept in, her terror started sidling out, replaced by the comforting reality of Yamada's solid, undeniable presence, the feel of air hitting the cold sweat she'd woken in, the faint sounds surrounding them. It felt real in a way that seemed to make the stranger feel incorporeal and her fear ridiculous.

Yamada didn't laugh. 'The first watch is over. No activity.'

Raiku swallowed. It burned her dry throat. 'Are they sure?' she asked weakly. But it had been dreamlike, she had recognised it even at the time.

'Yeah, Speedy. You're alright,' Yamada said, patting her on the shoulder lightly (for once).

She released a shuddery breath and pulled herself together. It was the mission, she had been worried. It was all so very serious, and they'd been going at such a hard pace that there had been an underlying sense of urgency. That was it. She was letting herself get emotional under the weight of her personal problems and it was affecting her work. She had to get herself together.

She creased her eyes at Yamada. 'I had a nightmare.'

Yamada had been a shinobi for a very long time now. 'Are you sure that's what it was?'

She met his gaze only briefly before she looked back at the ground. 'Daisuke and Ichitaka would have noticed something, so it was nothing.' Daisukenojo would never have let something happen on his watch, no matter what it cost him, and his chakra abilities were by far the best of the three of them. She trusted him. No one could have gotten past him to get to them, he cared too much.

After a moment's scrutiny, Yamada released her shoulders. "Right then," he nodded, regaining his usual tone. "Time for watch."

She nodded in return, rubbing sleep out of her eyes and throwing her blanket off, where it landed on Ryuu where he was sleeping next to her. He grumbled a little in his sleep and she took a second to look at him, reassuring herself. Ryuu didn't look innocent or beautiful in his sleep, which was a relief to her. That would have been a very bad narrative sign. He just looked like himself, with his eyes closed, like people were supposed to. So a little bit scary and a little bit handsome, but mostly slightly irritated. She levered herself into a standing position and luxuriated in a stretch, relishing the feeling of having herself back under her own control. Daisukenojo passed her on his way in, just dropping and rolling directly into her bedroll. She nudged him with her foot indignantly, but he just groaned a little and burrowed in with impressive speed.

Feeling generous, she decided not to electrocute him and to just make him wash it tomorrow. She loved her teammates, but after two days without bathing they started smelling intolerably like teenage boys, which was not at all restful.

Yamada gestured for her to take the north side in the upper branches, and she jumped upwards. Staying up for a few hours would make her feel more grounded, she knew from experience. She settled in the midst of some leafy cover with a good view, shifting her forehead protector down a little to decrease the visibility of her electric gaze.

If she kept her power above its usual baseline, just high enough to keep a reassuring hum in her bones, no one else had to know.


By the time they were packing up the next morning, she felt much more settled. She even had enough energy to talk Daisukenojo's ear off as they packed up, forcing him to carry her bedroll to repay her for her generosity in lending it to him.

'Generosity my ass,' he grumbled, strapping it to the top of his own things. 'You crammed yourself in there with me the second your watch ended and you are the pointiest human being to have ever lived.'

She creased her eyes at him in a literally radiant smile. 'Then you should have used your own things, Daisuke-kun.'

One of the twins snickered from her left, which she didn't even flinch at. She was that relaxed. It was a novel feeling. She wasn't even twitching. Much. Certainly no more than her physiology demanded after a night spent conducting electricity so constantly and then going into a sudden cut-off. She'd been well-covered enough to keep Daisukenojo safe, but she'd borne down especially hard on herself to make sure there weren't any accidents.

She hadn't wanted to be alone.

She shook off the remnants of her horrifying dream and made a determined fist. In the gently dappled light of day in the rather serene forest, the details of it faded away to nothing, just leaving only vague images, but the feeling of fear at the thought remained the same.

Daisukenojo continued complaining under his breath, but she had already assuaged the worst of his anger by handing over one of the red bean buns that her father had secretly smuggled into her bag to make up for trying to have an emotional moment with her.

She smiled to herself, secretly, not creasing her eyes at all. The eternal builder of bridges: food.

Yamada and Ichitaka conversing quietly on the corner of the camp caught her eye and she looked over at them with a complete lack of subtlety that would have totally mortified a better shinobi.

Her teacher was frowning.

Determined to be more cheerful today, Raiku leaned over to look at what Iwao was doing- something hidden in his hands.

He visibly stiffened when he felt the heat she exuded hovering over his shoulder, dark eyes sliding over while the rest of him froze.

'Whatcha doing?' she asked in a rare fit of bravery.

He gazed at her for a moment before slowly resuming what he'd been doing, pulling his hands apart slightly to make it more visible. She made a sound of interest at the sight of intricately bound up chakra strings, so fine they were almost invisible.

'So I guess you knew what you were talking about with the canopy, huh?' she mused.

Iwao nodded.

She eyed him. Something about Iwao's stilted, uncooperative demeanour was setting off a flag of recognition in her brain, but before she could try to pin it down, their respective leaders walked over to address them.

"Alright, wimps," Yamada said loudly, folding his arms into his trademark stance, feet perfectly hip width apart. "We've gotten a report from a nearby squad about a possible disturbance in our route ahead. So, we have two choices."

He stopped. They waited, but he seemed too deeply displeased by the idea of a democratic decision made amongst genin, too offended at this violent upheaval of the way of the world to continue.

Ichitaka gracefully took over. 'We can either continue with our current path and risk open conflict, or we can go around.'

'How long would that take?' Daisukenojo frowned.

She gave a fluid shrug. 'Anywhere from three to five days longer than our current estimated time.'

A chorus of groans.

'But I don't understand,' Raiku said loudly, trying to be heard over the noise. 'If there are enemies ahead, if they really are shinobi, they won't remain immobile, so don't we run the risk of running into them anyway? If they really are gunning for Konoha- or Sand-nin.'

Yamada grinned in approval. "Correct."

She let out her own groan of exasperation. 'So this is just about luck?'

Ichitaka made a slight sound of disagreement. 'Each side has pros and cons. If we continue ahead, it is possible that we will collide with a force of superior strength if they haven't moved on by the time we pass by. On the other hand, if we go around, we lose any support we have from allies in this territory.'

'Wait, that sounds like a big detour, if it's going to take us out of Konoha patrol range,' Daisukenojo interjected. 'How far, exactly?'

Ichitaka crouched and swiftly drew a few distinct shapes- the Land of Fire, the Land of Sand, the two countries that stood between them in equal parts. She pointed to the low Land of Rivers, making a dot roughly where Raiku vaguely remembered Tanigakure being. 'Of these two countries, River is the only nation that either of our countries has had any interaction with. That is why our route traditionally leads us here, and it is a good enough reason to remain in this country. Our new route would lead us near the patrol border of Tanigakure, the village of the Valleys, whose presence would hopefully deter any pursuit.'

'Tani isn't an ally of ours, or of Konoha,' one of the twins pointed out. 'We have no guarantee that they aren't one of the hostile parties ahead, given the recent political unrest.'

Ichitaka nodded. 'That's true.' Straightening, she dusted off her hands. 'So our choices are to either risk a definitely hostile party, or an unknown quantity.'

The area fell into a pensive silence.

After a while, Daisukenojo spoke up. 'Yamada-sensei, what do you think?'

Yamada inclined his head slightly. "I'd go for the direct route. These are the current patrol zones of our two villages," He crouched and drew two long curves some distance away from Konoha and Sand, the two lines coming reasonably close to each other. "They're a lot bigger now, since Sound went mental, so there's less unprotected distance to travel." Then he drew a line directly between the two villages, showing precisely the unprotected distance they would go through, and settled back on his haunches. "Any conflict we run into, if we couldn't handle it, could be dragged into either territory so we could send for help, unless it was smack-bang in the middle of this zone, get me?"

He shook his head. "I would never rely on another village when Konoha's just lost a Hokage. Same with Sand and their leader. It shows weakness that they might take advantage of to capture and interrogate us."

'But conversely, weaker villages like Tani have also historically been eager to gain favour with strong neighbours, and its neighbours are both Sand and Konoha,' Ichitaka pointed out. Clearly they had been arguing enough to try and put it to the team instead of just persuading the other. 'We've been able to expect assistance from them in the past, and even if we hadn't, we would not approach them directly. We would be using their own area of strength, without their knowledge, to make enemy parties reluctant to follow us.'

'So it's a bluff.'

Ichitaka nodded in agreement with Iwao. 'Our choices are whether to strong-arm our way through or bluff.'

Daisukenojo put a hand up. 'I want to go direct. We stand a better chance with our own territories than with a stranger's.'

The twin that had spoken before agreed and put his own up in silence.

The other shook his head. 'I vote indirect. It's too obvious. We have no idea how big the enemy party is, or if they're specifically after anyone here.'

'Or if it's even still there,' the other argued. 'It's unlikely that an enemy force, however small, would remain long in Konoha territory; it's still considered one of the most powerful villages, and their aggression has risen exponentially recently.'

The reasons for why were both obvious and politically incorrect in their current company, so no one dared say anything.

Raiku hesitantly put forward an idea. 'Couldn't we get one of our squads to draw them away, or to scare them off?' She fidgeted when this made her the centre of attention. 'If they're in our territory, or even just outside of it, they should be taken care of by some of our shinobi. Unless they're here for a reason, they wouldn't want to start something right inside our border.'

Yamada beamed proudly. "Good idea! Unfortunately, we don't know if they're inside or just outside enough to make attacking them undiplomatic. So it's moot. But!" he added loudly, clearly making a contentious point. "If the enemy were high-ranking, the ANBU wouldn't have ignored them. They would have smashed them into fine powder. So that means we're looking at Chuunin, maybe a Jounin or two, at the absolute most."

She deflated. It had seemed so doable. 'Then I say go straight. We don't know what Tani's alliances are, so they might side with our enemy. They might even be our enemy, we have no idea.'

'Tani has no alliances and a positive history with your village,' Ichitaka pointed out, the briefest of displeasure flickering across her lovely face.

Raiku shrugged helplessly. 'That's my vote. I'd rather be able to go for help than to not.'

'If we get attacked in this unprotected zone, any attempt to get help would be too late.'

Ryuu got involved, but seemed strangely without his usual vitriol. 'The enemy force must be both small and mid-level in order to be classified as an acceptable risk by our forces. And yours,' he said blandly, not really looking at anyone. Raiku frowned. It was unlike him to not bore into other people with his gaze. In fact, he'd been unusually withdrawn for a strategic conversation.

Ichitaka opened her mouth to speak.

'Straight.'

Iwao offered no further justification after his interruption. With his word they had reached an unassailable majority, so the vote was done. Yamada seemed pleased by Raiku's uncharacteristically confrontational decision, or maybe just about having won. "Right. Then we need to make sure we're all battle-ready, and we travel in formation, get me? We need to be able to attack as a unit at a second's notice, and the get the hell out of there when we need to. We're about to leave Konoha territory, and it'll take more than a day to get into the outskirts of Sand's turf, travelling as hard as we can."

'The idea is still not to provoke conflict, and to remain undetected if possible,' Ichitaka stressed. 'We don't want to enter a fight with anyone. We remain straight, and if and only if the group breaks off to pursue us, we immediately flee or fight as a group.'

'Wait. Wait wait wait. Were… we not travelling as fast as we can?' Daisukenojo asked faintly, clearly already regretting his vote.

Yamada's scarred lips stretched into a horrifying smile.


'I changed my mind,' Daisukenojo panted to Raiku at the other end of the same day, slumped against a tree for their five minute break in the orange light cast by the sun setting over the forest. 'I changed my mind ten hours ago.'

The rest of the younger members of their group seemed in total agreement. Raiku's chakra had failed her almost four hours in and she'd just been relying on her ability and her balance to keep her going over the tree branches. They were universally saturated in sweat, dirt and in some cases, a bit of blood from being nicked by branches on their faces and arms. Ryuu was bent over and leaning on a tree, deliberately steadying his breathing with slow, deep breaths that made Raiku's chest ache in sympathy, while Daisukenojo had thrown up the second they'd stopped and she'd had to drag him over to lean on something. He still looked pale and his legs shook intermittently, but he was the worst off. The twins and Iwao looked like a few miles of bad road, each, but while Akihito had collapsed onto the floor and just stayed there, Akihiro had ignored him and slumped over to the river they had stopped right next to, splashing his face and neck with the cool, clear water before starting to drink it for what seemed like forever.

It made Raiku eye him with completely blatant envy that went soul-deep. It looked so cool and refreshing. It looked wonderful. But if she did so the river would turn into heavy water because of the ionisation and the entire place would fill with oh-so-flammable hydrogen gas.

She would be lying if she said that made her stop considering it completely.

How bad could it be? What was a little explosive gas between friends-

No! No, she couldn't. Bad Raiku.

Raiku was bad at science, but this was one field she knew intimately. So she made do with her canteen, which made her mask and shirt cling to her with annoying dampness, but was still better than the alternative.

Yamada was as fresh as a daisy. He was doing stretches.

Raiku's system was jittery and too energised from the sustained build-up, despite her best efforts. She needed to discharge. She needed to explode or explode something. Her fingers were twitching and crackling every time she stopped consciously forcing it down. And she was the best off- she hadn't been using any chakra except for her sensing, she hadn't been using anything except her own strength. It was severely depleted, but also not ruined by chakra depletion.

For its part, the part of her that was the most literal Raiku was totally ecstatic, or at least as ecstatic as localised electricity could be. It had been out all day. It was disconcerting to be nervous, exhausted and totally euphoric at the same time. Also, extremely confusing. She was going to have to do something about it.

Wracking her brain for a solution, she missed her window.

'Five minutes up.'

At Ichitaka's announcement, they all dragged themselves into a more ordered state. Raiku despaired inwardly but leaned forward to help Daisukenojo up. 'A bit of help, Ryuu?' she panted. He ignored her.

This wasn't unusual, but his behaviour from earlier was still bothering her in the back of her mind.

"We're about to head through one of the River Nation bamboo forests, and the weather's picking up," Yamada told them, looking in the direction they were presumably going. Raiku had noticed more bamboo trees as they'd progressed, but she'd dearly hoped that that wasn't going to happen. She could fake it amongst sturdier trees, but springing from the flexible bamboo stalks instead of wide branches of normal trees wouldn't allow that kind of fraud and her chakra control was frayed under the weight of her power buzzing through her veins. She cast Daisukenojo a desperate look to plea for his aid, but he was breathing in carefully through his nose and then out through his mouth, obviously trying not to throw up now that he was standing again.

Raiku felt herself break into a cold sweat and cursed her body for its physiological stupidity. She was barely keeping hydrated as it was! What were they going to do once they reached Sand- get Ryuu to carry her again?

Oh god. Oh god no. Anything but that.

Raiku repressed the urge to throw her head back and stamp her foot in childish, but powerful, frustration.

Yamada was still talking, but his expression was serious. There was no amusement in his gaze. "This is gonna be a prime spot for ambush, especially since it's almost dark. I want everyone on their guard at all times, get me? And if the weather goes bad, which it looks like it's gonna, it's going to mess with us something fierce."

Ryuu spoke up from next to Raiku. 'I might have enough chakra to keep the area around us stable in the wind. But only if we compress our formation.'

Yamada shot him an assessing look. "By how much?"

Ryuu considered it, glancing around at the size of the group. 'Significantly. I'm still a genin, for god's sake, be reasonable.'

Yamada glanced at Ichitaka, who seemed to agree. "Will it slow you down?"

'A little, yes,' Ryuu said irritably. 'I've used a lot of my chakra to keep my legs from snapping off. If someone else gave me a bit of chakra support for running, I could dedicate the rest of my reserve to keeping the weather off us. And it is going bad,' he added spitefully. 'Just so you know.'

'The chakra expenditure will attract the attention of anyone nearby,' Ichitaka murmured to Yamada, who nodded grimly.

"Yeah, but on the other hand, this little bastard wouldn't be picking up on the weather unless it was gonna get windy as hell. I don't know about your mob, but mine don't have any experience in this kind of environment."

Ichitaka considered the six of them with equal grimness. 'We haven't encountered the shinobi we were warned about. If they haven't moved on, this would be the ideal place for them to be, and with something this conspicuous…'

Yamada nodded. "Ichitaka'll run ahead. If she gives the signal, you drop that jutsu right away. Not in a second, I don't care if you can terminate it safely or not, you just drop it and I'll drag you behind if there's a backlash, get me?"

Ryuu nodded, but his narrowed eyes broadcast his displeasure.

Yamada seemed happy with it anyway, if his bloodthirsty grin was any indication. "Alright! Closed formation. I want everyone within proper range of each other at all times."

Yamada started shouting them into place, but Raiku was so used to it that she could think while her body obeyed automatically. Ryuu was acting strangely, and there hadn't been a cloud in the sky when they'd set off. Sure, the sun was setting and they had travelled a significant distance, but Ryuu was barely ever able to predict the weather. The last time had been because he'd been making the weather, and that just a tornado. That she vividly remembered being part of, so she quickly glossed over that part mentally. She tried to remember what she knew of this geography. This bamboo forest was stretched across the foot of one of the mountains that stood over one of the many valleys that made Tanigakure's name so appropriate, but she didn't remember much else. The terrain would be bad enough with the bamboo, but if the weather was really going to turn nasty enough for them to risk detection to avoid it, the mountainous area they were entering could rapidly turn ugly.

She didn't like this. Yamada didn't like this. Daisukenojo gave up and threw up into a nearby bush, so she assumed he didn't like it either. Yamada set about supplying Ryuu with the additional strength he needed, giving Raiku a chance to check with someone else. She chose Iwao, because at least he had never openly called her stupid.

'Do you feel like something's up?' she hissed.

Iwao glanced at her. '…Yes.'

Damnit.

'I think this is a bad idea. Do we say something?'

'No. We can't go around at this point. We just have to be ready.'

He looked at the ground when he was done and a jolt of that recognition from earlier hit Raiku low with a realisation. It temporarily eclipsed her anxiety. '…Hey, Konishi,' she said slowly. 'You're actually just… really shy, aren't you?'

His head jerked up and his face went slightly red, visible even under his dark tan.

She gaped, feeling a sudden surge of giddy relief. 'Oh my god,' she exhaled. 'I thought you wanted to kill me! This is such a no Raiku focus,' she told herself sternly, hitting her forehead with her palm to jolt herself back on topic. 'I think-'

"Move out," Yamada instructed from behind. Ichitaka vanished in a blur of speed, the rest of them launching into the trees automatically. Raiku's legs burned fiercely all the way along, particularly in each knee and during each relaunch. As they fanned out a little she could still see Iwao and Ryuu, slightly behind, but none of the others.

Energy surged through her bones and kept her speed up, but made demands that she couldn't meet. She wanted to run. She wanted to burn and fly and she couldn't, she reminded herself sharply, that was just the exhaustion and adrenaline talking. Yamada had cut it fine- the first of the towering bamboo started to appear within less than an hour, when the sun was almost completely down and the world that twilight blue-grey, even through the trees. She avoided them for as long as she could until the more generous trees ceased to appear completely, and she had little choice.

Raiku dragged as much chakra to her feet as possible, but she could feel it steadily leaking out around her damaged control and escaping her- she was undergoing an unacceptable level of drain. Each jump had to take her diagonally across and forward to jump at a sideways angle from the last bamboo tree to land with one or both feet on another narrow stalk and they were so closely placed together that this required pinpoint aim and made it impossible to see clearly more than three metres away at the most. The effort and concentration this was taking was straining her already exhausted mind. She couldn't keep this up.

To make matters worse, the wind had started. The stalks were swaying in the air with increasing intensity the longer they kept through, and the constantly shifting and changing environment added to Raiku's already powerful paranoia to set her teeth on edge and her eyes alight with stray energy. She sped up subconsciously, feeling the edges of her panic from the night before seeping back in with her doubts under the cloud-darkening sky.

She felt a flare of a familiar chakra behind and to her right and the wind around them died abruptly. Along with the sound of the forest moving around them, or any sound at all. It was surreal- the air around them was still and perfectly silent and the forest in their immediate proximity motionless, while outside their protective bubble, the rest of the bamboo whipping through the air violently and crashing into each other made it impossible to see anything more than glimpses of other parts of the forest. It should have been a cacophony, but their bubble of stillness made it that much more unsettling.

The next time she caught a glimpse of Ryuu in the dark, she turned to get a better look at him in a pause perched against one of the stalks, but couldn't make him out.

Her skin was starting to crawl, and not just because her chakra was starting to slip her control more violently. That sense of wrongness was building.

In the absence of a warning flare from Ichitaka, Raiku steeled herself and kept going. She had to trust her team. She had to trust her team-

There was a powerful flare of chakra from up ahead.

Enemy movement.

Their group immediately drew in close enough to make each other out but kept hurtling forward, each other face set in grim determination. Raiku did her own quick headcount to reassure herself and looked ahead again. She took a tiny comfort in Yamada's presence behind them, solid and unmovable.

Seconds later, she felt more than saw Ryuu stumble slightly; the wind hit them with hurricane force and they were blasted with the sudden cacophony of bamboo wailing and crashing against each other under the elemental force of the growing storm and a suddenly whipped bamboo stalk caught a twin mid-jump and sent him flying backwards under the force. Iwao swiftly changed direction and went back for him while the other kept going as though nothing had happened. The sound cut off again viciously as Ryuu performed his technique again, but the air still moved slightly and when she saw him, his face was white and covered in sweat under the strain.

'Ryuu!' she shouted to be heard. 'What's happening!?'

Ryuu's teeth were gritted so tightly she couldn't fully make him out, but whatever he said made Yamada close distance to hear the full story. "What did you just say!?"

'It's not… natural!'

This time, Ryuu's pained exclamation could be heard by the group as a whole.

Raiku's blood ran cold.

'It's someone… else!' he forced out, struggling to keep going and straining under the force of maintaining his own jutsu. Its sphere of effectiveness had shrunk down to barely encapsulate their now tightly organised group and faltered after mere moments, the rest of them now forced to contend with the fury of the environment. Yamada was forced to grip Ryuu and support him, half-dragging him along. He was almost doubled over and in obvious pain, forced to seek the ground; she could feel his chakra faltering and failing. "Ready for attack!" Yamada bellowed, forcing Daisukenojo to take Ryuu's arm and a Kano, the other. A flash of movement made Raiku's head whip over to her unguarded left and she felt terror crash over her like an enormous wave when she felt its familiarity.

A vice seemed to close around her throat. Not a dream. Not a dream. Not a nightmare- 'Incoming!' she shrieked, voice almost lost in the sound of electricity surging upwards and out to her skin, lighting her up as a beacon in the dark and splintering the bamboo she'd jumped off. 'On the right!' one of the twins yelled back.

Yamada vanished in a split-second and she heard an enormous crash even through the wind and the surrounding wall of sound, but she couldn't pursue. She couldn't leave her teammates behind. She reacted at the flash of a kunai flying towards them and intercepted it with her own, ricocheting off to send them both elsewhere. She drew another in readiness and felt the metal humming with electric charge, vibrating in her hand and growing hotter and hotter.

A strong gust of wind made her squint and her eyes water, but she managed to keep them open enough that she ducked the incoming kunai slash of a shinobi who appeared right in front of her to attack. She flared violently from surprise and fear, forcing the enemy-nin to step back and illuminating him briefly. As well as the unfamiliar Plot that was wrapped around him like a snake. She snarled in helpless rage and parried another blow, her red-hot kunai sizzling upon impact and her free hand coming around with the momentum to blast a wave of electricity in a wide arc. He vanished before it could make contact, leaving her looking around in fearful confusion.

'Raiku, above!'

She immediately looked upwards at Daisukenojo's panicked yell and only narrowly blocked the kick of the enemy, but the power behind it made her stumble and lose her balance. Her arm throbbed with pain but the enemy gave her no time to recover and pressed the advantage with another low kick the second he landed, impacting hard on the side of her knee and making it buckle, sending her into a lopsided kneel on the ground. She managed to bring her armed hand up in time to make him withdraw the punch he'd been sending her way and lunged to her feet to slash broadly across his chest with blinding electric speed. She only manage to leave a shallow slice across his sternum before he gripped her hand and shoved, but he'd been forced to let go with a hiss from the pain of the brief electrical shock, and as they both gained a split second of distance she realised he was already recalculating his strategy.

She panicked. She couldn't let him think of another way. She'd lose. She was faster than him and he couldn't touch her, but he was obviously stronger than her and she needed this to be over right away. There were more- she could hear the fighting in snatches that weren't stolen away by the wind and the sound of bamboo whipping against each other.

Wait.

She abandoned defence and launched herself at him in a burst of impossible speed that he partially dodged but that clipped him on the side and sent him into one of the trees. Before he could recover she sent a line of wire out to try and trap him but it went wide in the wind and went too low, only getting him around the hip. He freed himself instantly and went back on the offensive, hands forming seals together rapidly.

'Wind seal!' came the warning from behind. Raiku cursed and let power pour out of her in a blinding flash that seared the eyelids of her teammates and disrupted the man enough for her to throw her kunai directly at him.

He vanished again, the kunai burning directly through the stalk of bamboo and sending the entire thing crashing down.

'Not good,' she panted, trying to keep her eyes open against the wind. 'Not good.'

She had to be able to see him and touch him to kill him. Her distance capabilities were weak, but if she could grab him, she could kill him. If he reached Daisukenojo and Ryuu, they were dead.

Pain exploded along her left side and she crashed to the ground, rolling at the last second to get out of the way of a stomp that split the earth she'd just vacated, wheezing with the force. She felt warmth running down her ribs and reached, yanking out one of the shuriken with a cry before she rolled onto it and imbedded it further. She was forced to roll again and curled up to defend against a violent kick, putting a hand on the ground so she could launch a kick towards the other man's leg that connected with a satisfying crack and the feel of something giving. She heard a curse and he retaliated with a swift move that made the air around her shove her to the ground again flat, an enormous pressure keeping her down and her lungs too limited to draw enough breath. Her eyes rolled in her head to try and see her teammates and if she could have, she would have cried out.

A Plot of his own was attached to Ryuu at his feet, its mass sliding up his legs and enmeshing him- an exact double of the shinobi she was fighting. Had been fighting.

She realised distantly that she had lost.

The air stilled. There was silence, except for Raiku's shallow inhalations and those of the nin above her, keeping his hands locked together to keep her down and out.

'Ne, that was a strong jutsu.'

The voice was a smooth, androgynous one with an accent she couldn't place. She couldn't see the owner- they were too far to the side, and her own foe hadn't spoken.

'It took a lot of effort to force our way through. Impressive, since you seemed to have felt your way through by intuition.'

She heard a single, muffled clap.

'Let her go!' Daisukenojo demanded.

'I wasn't talking to you.'

Daisukenojo let out a sharp sound and then she heard a thud that she recognised; her teammate falling to his knees. Ryuu swayed in her peripheral vision but managed to stay on his feet, even if he had staggered.

'What do you want?' he rasped.

Whoever he was talking to paused for a moment before they spoke again.

'I want you to come home.'

Another pause.

'We thought you dead with all the others. Imagine our surprise when a young man is seen in the chuunin exams with our eyes and techniques, so long gone.'

Ryuu's face seemed to change from where she lay. He said nothing, though.

Where was Yamada?

'And then we'll be done here.' The person continued. The pressure on her chest increased, forcing more air out and Raiku let out a strangled noise. Her vision was going dark around the edges. The warmth down her side was pooling under her and she knew it was blood, leaking out from her injury. 'And I would rather not harm anyone else. They seem to have been kind to you, and that's important to us.'

Where was anyone?

Desperately, Raiku reached for her ability where it lay beneath her skin, but the oxygen deprivation was making her lightheaded and her limbs non-responsive.

Just like before.

Wind trumps lightning. Ryuu had always beaten her.

She managed to move her head enough to look at Ryuu and the unconscious Daisukenojo, vision starting to fail. He was pale and shaking slightly, his yellow eyes wide. At last, at last, she saw the person who was speaking to him, who had watched Ryuu in his home and in his sleep and who watched him now with their own steady, yellow gaze. Heavily covered in camouflage greens and browns, hidden almost entirely, but whose eyes were unmistakable.

Ryuu opened his mouth, an expression of contempt twisting his sharp features. 'Go… to hell,' he panted.

The man tilted his head in a move so familiar it made Raiku's skin crawl. 'Ne, Ryuusuke. You know you don't belong with these people. You've told yourself a thousand times that you have a family now, and it doesn't matter where you came from.' He tsked and shook his head, maintaining unblinking eye contact. 'But you know that's not true. You know you aren't meant to languish in obscurity in some village on a downward spiral to nowhere.'

Ryuu bared his teeth and the man smiled slightly without showing his own. 'We came to get you.'

Raiku forced out another pained sound before the man who was keeping her down growled in warning, attracting Ryuu's attention and catching his eyes with her own wide, frightened ones. He looked away quickly, back to the man and opened his mouth to speak. Raiku watched in mute horror as the Plot reached his throat and tightened, something shifting in Ryuu's gaze.

No. No no no nononono-

'You attacked us. You stalked me-'

The man took a step forward, his sharp, beautiful face twisted with strong emotion. 'You are our family and they stole you from us!' The man's passion intensified and she could hear it in his voice, his accent growing stronger.

Ryuu jerked back as though stung and the man took another step. 'You are ours,' he said fervently. 'You feel the world the way we do and they wander through with their eyes closed and their hands over their ears.'

Ryuu looked down. At Raiku, meeting her gaze and she saw his fear for her fade in his eyes, saw the Plot taking hold of him and he was going to leave her there to die, she realised. He was going to leave her and Daisukenojo to be murdered in the dark because his own personal narrative demanded its resolution and it had started so much earlier than she could ever have expected. She had been so afraid that he was being targeted by her own Plot that it hadn't occurred to her that he had been the original Genematrix risk.

She opened her mouth to try and form words but she had no air left to speak. Her arms and legs were numb, motionless.

A black shape appeared like the hand of god itself, sliding across the ground to her. Her own Plot, returning now. She strove to remain conscious as a ray of hope pierced her like an arrow, watching it with greedy eyes. She had to live to have one. She had to live. She refused to die. She felt an unknown strength welling up inside her chest, felt it climbing her spine and pounding in her ribs- in the back of her eyes as they started to close against her will.

Power built until it ripped out of her skin, out through her fingertips, her eyes, her mouth in an electric explosion of terror and euphoria and desperation and sent the world white, before it went black.


A/N: oh god please don't kill me, I can explain.

Okay, I can explain but I technically can't because the story's not over, obviously. BUT! Trust me! Aha... Ha... Ha?

This was difficult to get across, so forgive any jerkiness.

Reviews:

Fluehatraya: you are becoming a fixture, aren't you? I'm glad that I'm not offending anyone who is actually anxious, since it worried me while I was making her. Thanks for reviewing!

1412 karasu: ah, that is the question, isn't it? Unfortunately, I can't say, but it's obviously going to be important, so stay tuned! I tried quite hard to make the Sand team realistically unsettling without making them cartoonish villains, so I appreciate you saying so!