When they arrived at the Princess in Exile's dining hall, Naruto burst in and almost leaped into a chair with barely an acknowledgement of Uiko, Fugo and Reona who were already eating, and helped himself to the fruit, breads, eggs, sliced ham, fried potatoes, biscuits and gravy.
The stone-paneled room was spacious and vaulted, with broad, arched windows and a colorful mosaic floor laid out in florid arabesques. Tomoki, to his relief, found his sword belt draped over his chair, along with a gift from his hostess – a pair of bokken.
The leaf-ninjas' reunion with their captors was an uncomfortable one, and their meal was eaten in relative silence, with their brief, forced conversations centering on the most mundane of topics.
Uiko was almost maniacal in her desire to leave. She ate little, and her stern glances urged and prodded at the others to finish quickly. Her efforts mounted to little, however, as Naruto was entirely immune to this subtlety and Fugo just plain didn't care.
At last, when everyone had finished, Lady Acacia infuriated the elder stone-ninja even further by accompanying them, along with her senior student, Sebellius, to the borders of her estate. After they'd said their goodbyes, the Princess called Naruto and Tomoki back. She looked at them both then bent down close to them so the rest would not hear, "Be careful, you two, and keep safe. Whatever happens, whatever you decide," she whispered, "know that you will always be welcome here."
Now all together again, the group's footsteps crunched down the gravel road which lead, Tomoki presumed, to the Village Hidden among the Stones. Naruto hummed absently to himself with both hands rested carelessly behind his head. He was a stark contrast to Uiko, whose features were compressed, tensed in an extremity of exasperation as she grit her teeth and cursed under her breath.
After a few miles of walking, Uiko handed Reona a scroll and sent her and Fugo on ahead. The pair of stone-ninjas quickly vanished into the swirling lights of her ghost-walk jutsu.
"Transform yourselves please," she said to the remaining leaf-ninjas with a haggard voice.
Naruto's eyes bugged as he turned toward Tomoki and the two faced each other with their right fists rested in their left palms. They then played 'rock/paper/scissors' to decide who would have to be Fugo.
The blond genin cried out and stamped his foot when he lost. "Come on, Tom-tom!" he begged, "two-out-of-three!?"
Tomoki snorted as he shook his head then made his hand signs for the transformation jutsu, becoming Reona in a burst of smoke.
"Hurry up, already," Uiko muttered at which Naruto used his jutsu and turned himself in a similar manner into Fugo.
"Nice," he complained bitterly and sneered, every bit as nastily as the real Fugo.
Before long, they reached a packed road where pedestrians and porters, sputtering trucks, horse-drawn carts and wagons rolled toward the capital, while columns of armed ninjas along with caissons full of weaponry and siege engines headed purposefully outward.
Naruto and Tomoki couldn't help but glance at the marching regiments – some were comprised of genin as young as themselves and went forth either with confident faces toward adventure or with cowed faces toward uncertainty. Others were older genin and chunin, experienced veterans who strode with grim purpose, some with eye-patches, bandaged or missing limbs, who knew full well what awaited them.
Uiko, calloused to such sights, whistled shrilly as she flagged down a wagon, at which a sullen driver pulled obediently to the side.
Naruto, disguised, stretched his leg and put his small foot up on the sideboard to climb inside, then froze. His expression locked on the driver's face and the character that was branded upon his cheek. 'Thief' was what it read.
"Fugo," said Uiko, who took him by the shoulder. "It's not polite to stare."
Tomoki frowned as he followed Naruto into the wagon. "Uiko," he pointed out in Reona's youthful voice, "it's not polite to scar, either."
A few hours passed after they'd set out in the back of the wagon when the gates of the Hidden Stone Village came into view. Passing under, the two masquerading leaf ninja and Uiko, found themselves in a city of rigid, straight streets, rectangular, homogenous buildings of white plaster in-filled between brown-painted columns and cross-braces, and capped with hipped, yellowish, pan-tiled roofs.
Citizens walked in small, quiet groups while menials in cover-alls swept the streets and sidewalks clean. Naruto and Tomoki looked out over the strange city which seemed so different from the warmer, chaotic precincts of Konoha.
A patrolling stone-ninja sentry gave them a suspicious eye as he passed, then stopped.
Naruto glared at the gruff man sharply with Fugo's pugnacious face. "What are you lookin' at, butt-face?!" he snarled haughtily.
The ninja's expression tensed for a moment. "Nothing," he barked back, "but a foul-mouthed little puke. Move on, and keep quiet if you know what's good for you!"
Tomoki leaned toward Naruto and whispered, "Nice work…way to sell the disguise."
The genin gave him a wide, toothy smile that Fugo could never have managed. "So who's selling what?" he said, then sat back.
The cart turned right then left, onto a broad, crowded boulevard that, unlike the other streets, ran at an angle to the grid. The spacious central median was lined with flowers and shrubs that had been trained and pruned into perfect, geometric shapes. Up ahead, the road curved to split around a towering statue of a handsome, robed man who stood with his arms out by his sides, palms forward.
Naruto lurched to the other side of the wagon. "Hey, who's that?" he asked and pointed, at which the driver looked back at him like he was crazy.
"Don't be stupid, Fugo," began Uiko with a tremor in her voice. "You know perfectly well that's the First Tsuchikage."
The small red-head looked at her then up at the statue. "Oh…right," he offered slyly. "How could I forget? First…second, I always get them confused!"
The driver again looked back, then shook his head. Uiko's mouth fell open. "Idiot," she growled with annoyance, then lectured: "For the last four-hundred years, there's only been one! One, N—Fugo; there is, and shall ever be, only one!"
Naruto shrank from her tense, insistent manner, and fell silent while Tomoki looked up ahead. Both set aside their questions, for there, rising up along the edge of a plateau, a great edifice loomed. It's faceted, windowed and balconied facades soared up over the city, reaching many stories higher than the crests of the rocky cliff faces on which they hung. Here and there, through broad openings, poured mighty streams of water which crashed down into colossal basins with a roar like continual thunder and plumes of mist that arose like smoke.
"Castle Omphalos," muttered Uiko preemptively and with reverence, "the great center of our land, and the fountainhead of wisdom and order. This is the way it has always been." Her two 'captives' looked at her curiously. "It's so easy to be impressed by its size, its height…its sheer enormity," she lectured on with quiet passion. "But the real grandeur of this place lies in time."
"Time?" ventured Tomoki. "How do you mean?"
The woman canted her head and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face. "For thousands of years, even back into pre-history, there has been civilization here. Starting with caves then primitive cliff-dwellings, each people who've lived here built over the ruins of the old, layer upon layer," she said and smiled wanly. "They must have felt like…like they could harness the power of all the efforts put forth by their predecessors." She grinned at the two young ninja, knowing she'd lost them. "Still…I've always been reassured by its presence -- an anchor in a floating world."
Their wagon rolled on awhile longer until the traffic slowed then came to a stop. All three ninja rose to their feet to look. Up ahead stood another monumental statue of some luminary, but there was a figure dressed in rags, waving his arms and pacing around wildly on its tall pedestal. The young man's head, including his eyebrows, was completely shaven, and he shouted out to the furious crowd he'd gathered beneath him.
Uiko pressed a hand against her face and slumped as she sighed.
"What's all that about?" asked Tomoki.
"What's all what about?" squealed Naruto, who jumped up and down, far too short to see.
The kunoichi's cheek twitched. "A number of disquieting things have happened recently," she explained, "I'll spare you the details." Uiko frowned and set her hands on her hips. "People have lost their minds…and their faith…and our Hidden Village has become a magnet for every conspiracy theorist, nihilist, spiritualist and nutcase in Earth Country."
Somberly, the senior stone-ninja appraised the situation. "Come on," she said then hopped down from the wagon onto the street and started to walk. "There will be no way through here until the watch comes and cracks some skulls." Naruto and Tomoki hurried after her, headed toward the ponderous walls of Castle Omphalos.
In the intimate, wood-paneled, ante-chamber of the Empress, Desdemona Shan, high up inside Castle Omphalos, the three waited. The house for the Earth Country's government was indeed a fortress, and if it wasn't for the fact that the Empress expected them, they never could have gotten in. Even as it was, they had to pass through what seemed like miles of winding hallways, steep stairways and countless checkpoints where the ninjas stationed there waited with a tense vigilance that informed Tomoki that something serious was afoot.
Tomoki, having shed his guise as Reona, stood at the window and looked out at the sprawling city below. It was indeed quite a view. He braced his arms on the sill and worried his lip as he thought. This mission the Hokage had sent him on was to gather information about his captors. Though really, he hadn't learned that much, his brain felt like it was already filled to overflowing.
A frown creased his face as he shut his eyes. He felt trapped somehow, suffocated and caught – the perilous sensation of snares closing around every limb. He drew a deep, meditative breath to try and clear his mind, but the effort brought him little comfort.
He waited now, with his friend and with his captor, for the Empress of Earth Country to see them. He suppressed a shudder at what the ruler of this strange realm would be like, but tried to keep an open mind. The only thing he was certain of was that she would not be what he expected.
Tomoki's eyes fell toward Uiko, whose countenance had fallen ghastly pale, then at Naruto who leaned back in his chair completely bored.
"So," remarked the yellow-haired genin, "you're really in trouble, aren't you?"
The woman's eyes flickered toward him. For a fleeting moment, her temper sparked, but then quickly sputtered out. "Yes, Naruto," she said, closed her eyes, then rested her head in her hands. The older woman looked at him, then asked with casual curiosity, "How long have you known?"
The genin rocked back and forth, balanced on the back legs of his chair as he pushed off the table leg languidly with his foot. "Since we met!" he informed her proudly. "When Tomoki was changing that tire and you were getting ready to knock him out I saw the look on your face."
"Ah," offered Uiko in simple acknowledgement.
"Yup! I know what somebody getting in trouble looks like," the boy illuminated and cocked a thumb toward himself, "I'm an expert." He shook his head then scratched behind his ear. "But I never ever even came close to doing anything like what you did!"
Tomoki winced, "Easy, Naruto." He looked at the woman's face and saw in it a desperation that stirred his heart toward the depths of solemnity. "Madam Uiko," he ventured, "If there's anything we can do…"
The kunoichi laughed bitterly. "I suppose you know too."
The genin smiled in sympathy. "It took me a little longer," he admitted, "until the night we camped out."
"Sure," she replied understandingly then all three looked up as a young man approached from the hall outside, peered past the columns then drew to a halt.
He was tall and young, with dishwater blond hair and droopy green eyes. "Spies," he hissed intensely as his head swiveled toward the two leaf-ninjas.
"Master Florian!" Uiko cried, rose to her feet and bowed. "Please, it's not what it appears!
The newcomer produced a dagger from his vest and sprang at them. Tomoki, taken by surprise, flinched back as the blade cut his sleeve then snatched up a chair to fend him off. The man snarled wildly and lunged at Naruto who seized his arm, brought it low, and spun sharply. Pivoting back against his wrist, the genin sent his attacker crashing to the floor, bumping hard against the edge of the table as he went.
"Naruto," remarked Tomoki with a smile as his friend levered the blade from Florian's grasp. Naruto looked back at him curiously. "That move was fluid and efficient…since when are you capable of anything like that?"
The genin grinned casually as he spun the knife into the air and caught it smartly by the handle.
"What is this!" a woman's voice roared imperiously. All turned toward a slender, matriarch dressed in a green, wide-sleeved gown, who stood at the entrance to the ante-chamber accompanied by a scowling stone-ninja and two cagey-looking bodyguards whose faces were completely obscured by bandages of wrapped cloth. "Again with this sort of behavior uncle?" she said coldly as she came forward and fixed him with a gaze of her shimmering, amethyst eyes. Florian picked himself up, nursing his wrist, then staggered back as he gaped at her in wide-eyed terror. "How many times have I spoken with you about that, yet here I find you accosting my guests!"
"P-please, Desdemona," Florian begged. "I can't go through that again!"
He flew back at an explosion of white as the woman whipped her arm out. When all was still once more, Florian hung frozen in mid-air, transfixed by hundreds and hundreds of thin, white threads which passed from the Empress' outstretched hand, through his body, and terminated in a like number of needles imbedded in the wall behind him.
Naruto's mouth hung open in shock and his blue eyes widened. "You witch!" he railed. "Monster! You killed him, and for no reason…for no reason at all!
"Naruto!" Uiko turned towards him, mortified. "You have no right to speak to the Empress like that!"
Tomoki stared completely stunned for a moment then, intent on freeing the luckless young man, dropped his hand to the handle of his sword. The Empress' bodyguard was on him in a blur and pressed him hard into the wall. His icy hands pinned the genin, one trapped his wrist low at the waist, the other clamped over his eyes and levered under his nose, forcing his head back. Tomoki shuddered as the felt the guard's cold teeth dent the skin of his throat.
Naruto hissed a breath as kunai knives leaped into his hands and he prepared to spring.
"Stop!" Desdemona commanded, drawing the boy's glance, but her order was directed at her guard. "Don't you dare harm him!"
The genin's eyes darted furiously. "Let him go!" Naruto growled menacingly. Desdemona looked at the belligerent, orange-clad boy with an expression of amusement. "I can see that you're from far away to be concerned about such a trivial thing," she commented demurely, then said as if to answer Naruto's growing anger, "But you needn't be concerned at all about your friend, he is my guest." Her guard read her meaning, released Tomoki, then backed away. "Or about poor uncle Florian; he'll be back soon enough. He is a Shan, after all."
"What?!" the blond genin barked while Tomoki wiped his neck with a sleeve. "What do you mean?"
"Please, Naruto, Tomoki, stop this senselessness," Uiko prevailed stridently. "It's true. He'll return." The leaf-ninja spun toward her; his disbelief evident on his face. "It's the Shan family's gift, their kekkei-genkai. They cannot be killed…not really." Naruto looked up in dismay at the dead, pierced body of Florian, but Uiko insisted: "He'll be back, Naruto, really. His spirit, personality and intellect will return in the body of the next child born to the Shan bloodline. He's already come back four times!"
Tomoki stared hard at her and tried to grasp what she had said. "Tra…transmigration of the soul?" he puzzled aloud.
Uiko shrugged. "Something like that."
Empress Desdemona released the tension in her threads and let the body of her uncle collapse to the floor in an inert heap. Her guards, without a word or so much as a glance, gathered up the needles and tangles of thread, collected the body and departed with it, while the other stone ninja stationed himself by her side. "Now then," she began crisply as she sat down at the little table with her hands folded in front of her. "Now that all that's out of the way, I hope, let's to business -- Uiko, I received your message." Her thin lips upturned into a grim smile. "My goodness, but we've been busy!"
Uiko looked back at her for a moment but could not meet her eyes or contain her tears. "My Lady," she gasped, "I'm so sorry! I'm to blame for all of this!"
Her disconsolation was enough to cool the tempers of the two leaf-ninjas. They exchanged glances, then picked up their chairs and joined the two women at the table.
The Empress' eyes twinkled. "Since the very first days of the Village Hidden among the Stones, I don't think there has ever been an incident like this – a genin so rash, so reckless, as to initiate her own mission."
"Yes, Empress," confessed Uiko who nodded at once. Even the two boys winced slightly as they took in the gravity of her offense.
The woman looked at her, flabbergasted. "I feel that anything I could say about the sheer, unadulterated stupidity of what you've done would only be redundant! The danger you placed little Reona and Fugo in, not to mention yourself. Had you been caught, the Leaf Village's retaliation against us would have been completely understandable."
The kunoichi nodded. "Yes, Lady Desdemona…my actions," she sputtered, "I understand that my actions are completely indefensible."
The Empress laughed mirthlessly. "Ah…words fail us at such moments." She looked at Tomoki and Naruto before returning her attention to her wayward genin. "Well, Uiko," she said and steepled her fingers. "Let me hear it. Though, of course, there can be no excuse for your disregard, I suppose there must be an explanation."
"This boy," she began, almost choking on the words, and gestured at Tomoki. "I…he, I think he can help."
"Help? With what?" wondered the Empress, who batted her eyes. "My dear Uiko…what do you expect him to do, that our own ranks of brave and loyal ninjas can not?"
Uiko fidgeted at bit at her thumbnail. "It's stupid, I know…but, I heard some of the younger genin telling this story they'd heard about a ninja from the Hidden Leaf Village named Tomoki who'd killed a horrible witch with great powers." Desdemona looked at her inscrutably, then raised an eyebrow. "And…well, I thought he might, I don't know, be able to do something about the guei."
While Tomoki glanced up curiously, a flicker fired across the so-far expressionless stone-ninja's face.
"Oh, Uiko," muttered the Empress sadly.
"I'm so sorry, my Lady!" wailed Uiko. Tears poured from her eyes. "We've been cursed…one of the foul clans has cursed us!" She fell into a fit of breathless sobs while the two leaf-ninja waited awkwardly.
"Master Tomoki, just for my edification," the Empress uttered quietly as she allowed Uiko time to collect herself, "is that story true?"
Taken-aback at being put on the spot, the boy shut his eyes but nodded.
"It seems incredible to me," replied the Empress, "though I do not doubt it, for there are stranger things by far in this world."
"I'm sorry for that display," sniffled Uiko in a trembling voice. "As a stone-ninja, it is beneath me. I've done what I've done, and will face whatever justice you see fit."
Naruto and Tomoki had already seen the Empress' idea of 'justice' and straightened tensely, but Desdemona's stone-like expression seemed to melt with pity. "Uiko…Uiko look at me," she said in a consoling voice. "I know your heart. What you have done, you did for the sake of our village. It was an aberration from your many years of creditable service, a temporary mania I'm sure brought on by the stress of wartime and so many strange events.
"I see no need to punish you. If our two guests are amenable, I will send word to my brother, the Tsuchikage, and persuade him to be lenient."
The leaf-ninjas looked up, slightly started. "It's fine with me, Lady Desdemona," answered Tomoki abruptly to which Naruto shrugged, then added: "Uh…yeah, I'm good."
The Empress beamed and set her hands flat on the table. "Splendid," she said, and beamed. "All's well that ends well."
Naruto looked at her then at Uiko, then folded his arms and made a face. "I'd never have gotten off that lightly," he grumbled at which Tomoki elbowed him.
Uiko, having suddenly been dismissed from her execution, went limp; too emotionally drained even to say 'thank you.'
"Now that that's all settled," began the Empress benignly as she turned her attention toward her two guests, "I hope you two will stay for awhile as ambassadors from the Country of Fire. We'll have Reona take you back whenever you wish."
The leaf ninjas, at a loss for any better idea, assented.
The woman gestured at which her ninja looked at her alertly. "Catullus, please show these two to the guest quarters and then to the Tsuchikage. He will, no doubt, be delighted to receive them."
Tomoki and Naruto left the Empress' offices somewhat mystified, but well aware that things could have gone much, much worse.
Unlike most buildings the two were familiar with, Castle Omphalos was not oriented horizontally but vertically. Despite its ponderous bulk, the greater part of its habitable spaces clustered along an expansive outside face while the majority of the interior was walled off.
Catullus, a chunin, who appeared to be in his mid-twenties, goateed, and shaved bald, avoided looking at his charges as much as it was possible. His pained countenance and tense body-language made it clearer than words that accompanying these two visitors from the Hidden Leaf Village was the very last thing he wanted to do.
Despite that, he, as instructed, guided them a long way through the winding, windowed corridors and twisting stairways that clung to the outside walls, to a modest but comfortable apartment that they would share for the duration of their stay. The walls were plain, plastered stone, the floor, tile, and the furnishings solid wood framing cushioned with cotton mats.
They took a few minutes to inspect its living area, small kitchen and bathroom, and then a larger sleeping porch with latticed windows that cantilevered from the castle walls and gave a thrilling view over the Hidden Stone Village below.
"Let's go," said their guide, and the gloomy tones of his voice stole the two leaf-ninjas' enthusiasm. "Come on, 'Ambassadors,' it's time you met the Tsuchikage."
"What's he like?" inquired Naruto eagerly as they walked, whereupon Catullus winced.
"Why ask me," he replied coolly. "You'll find out for yourself soon enough."
Tomoki followed along quietly for as long as he could then asked: "Is it true, what Uiko said about the guei?"
The ninja's stride slowed for a moment and he scowled. "Don't ever ask me that."
Naruto grimaced, then rasped, "Just what are you being so touchy about?"
Catullus stopped and turned fully toward them with a hateful glare. "You two being here," he reported. "That anyone, even a hopeless, old genin like Uiko, would think that the ninjas of the Hidden Stone Village need the help of a couple of Hidden Leaf tadpoles like you is a disgrace to us all."
Naruto frowned and matched his glare. "Well since she obviously thought you needed the help, maybe you should think about taking it!"
Catullus quivered visibly with rage, then blinked it away. "If the Empress had not sanctioned your visit here, it would not be your help I would take…but your lives!"
"Catullus," Tomoki intervened. "We didn't come here meaning to offend you," he said in conciliatory tone, "but we're here none-the-less. Let's just make the best of it."
The stone-ninja's eyes roved between the two. Violence was what he was disposed toward, but duty stayed him. "Yeah…let's," he grumbled.
Catullus conducted them through a number of galleries, up grand stairways and past scores of guard posts manned by detachments of twitchy chunin. A pair of stout, brass-bound doors opened and they found themselves in a broad, columned hall comprised of a long series of domed bays. Sunlight streamed in from high windows and lit up the polished marble and granite floor.
Each bay featured a pair of short pedestals on either side upon which life-like figures stood. The first was a swarthy man with long, black hair, in plated, leather armor and boots that curled at the toes. His thick fingered hands clutched a guan-dao halberd. His counterpart across from him was a woman, slender and pale, though her skin was adorned from head to foot with vine-work tattoos. Her eyes blazed wide and her lips were pulled back in a fearsome snarl.
Naruto looked back and forth at the displays as their footfalls echoed hollowly against the stone. "Kinda cool," he observed. "It's like a museum or something." He sped up so that he could take a longer look at the next pair: a warrior in flamboyant wood and lacquered-leather armor armed with a pair of short axes; and a woman in a traditional white tunic and pleated black hakima. The genin jumped up to hang for a moment at eye level, then waited for Tomoki. "This place is really something, isn't it…huh?"
Tomoki looked at him balefully and shook his head slightly.
Catullus' laugh sounded more like a hiss. "Your friend gets it," the stone-ninja muttered contemptuously. "I guess he must be the brains of the operation, and you're just clueless."
"Gets what?" Naruto challenged. "What are you talking about?"
"Go ahead, Tomoki," continued Catullus unkindly. "You must be used to explaining the obvious to him by now."
The leaf ninja's jaw tensed. "He's not clueless," Tomoki clarified. "It's just that…something as awful as this wouldn't occur to him right away." Naruto looked at him with a searching expression that his friend could not meet. "They're not fakes, Naruto," he began tentatively. "They're…they were real people. They…they've been stuffed and mounted."
Their stone-ninja guide looked at Naruto's shocked face and barked out a laugh. "Surprise!" he crowed and stretched his arms toward one of the taxidermies. "Cropped-top is right. These are the leaders, the chieftains, the shaman, the patriarchs and matriarchs of all the clans who got in our face and resisted our power. Go on! Look! This is what they've become – notes in our history books; their defeat on display for all to see."
Naruto turned away and shook his head. "You people," he gasped, "really are monsters."
Catullus chuffed. "Monsters, you say? I show you a monster!" he shouted and stormed at Naruto, grabbing him roughly by the shoulder and wheeling him toward another display on which a man stood in a cloak and long skirt woven from grass and reeds. His face was painted black and green, and in his hands he held a double-edged blade that was curved and serrated. A quiver on his back held long arrows along with an atl-atl throwing stick. "This is a monster, right here! This is a den-master from the River Lands. Now imagine an army of them, all familiar with nin and gen-jutsu rising up, unseen and unheard, from the swamps around you. Before you know it, they've cut your neck then let you drop away into their bogs to drown and bleed to death.
"You think the world is a kind place? You're a fool! You can look at this gallery and call us monsters, but I say…if anything, we're not monstrous enough, not by far!"
Catullus looked back and forth between the two genin in disgust then stamped away.
Naruto looked up again at the trophy man in the grass clothing, and his hand slowly reached up and rested on the lip of his pedestal.
"Naruto?" asked Tomoki in a halting voice.
"I'm ok," his friend answered sadly. "I'm just wishing them luck." He looked off into the domed gallery and its pairs of taxidermies that reached into the distance. "All of them."
Tomoki nodded. Though many of the peoples presented here were truly frightening, and he did not doubt at all Catullus' tale. The genin wet his dry lips and replied, "I think they'll need it."