"All right Akamaru, mark them."
Akamaru barked and seemed to smile at the command. Lifting a leg he urinated on the unconscious shinobi one after the other. Tied to separate trees in opposite directions, there would be little they could do to help each other escape when they eventually woke up. Kiba heard Karui suppress a laugh as she watched the scene out of the corner of her eye.
"They should be out for a while, and even if they wake up they'd have to be boneless and skinless to escape from these ropes." Adjusting his vest, Kiba walked over to Karui, who was reading the Bingo book again by the light of a small fire. "Find our new friend?"
"Samuru the Gale. He's small time, only worth two-hundred thousand ryo." Karui sounded disappointed, "Barely made it out of the Academy, when he disappeared nobody thought twice about him. What worries me is that he seemed oddly well trained in wind jutsu for a dropout."
"We may learn something about him yet. Akamaru picked up his trail a few moments ago, maybe they had a hideout."
"Okay, sounds promising."
The thinning fog made travel easier, but Kiba's mind was still not at ease. He had Akamaru mark the criminals they had captured because should the chakra blocking mist arise again, the dog's natural sense of smell would be able to track them back down. It was still well into the night, but the moon shone thorough the branches of the evergreen trees. The light was broken up into thin strips as it passed through the web of needles.
As the shack approached Kiba's sense of smell identified three additional people by their scents, but none were nearby at the moment. Giving a go-ahead nod to Karui they approached the shed, avoiding the few land mines she pointed out. Getting to the door, she stopped Kiba and Akamaru with a gesture. Looking at the front door for a few moments, she gently hit the doorpost twice before hearing a clicking sound. Opening the door safely proved that she had successfully disarmed whatever trap had been set.
The shed had seemed poor and rather drab from the outside, but the inside was impressive. A small room in the front had supply racks and hammocks, it led to a staircase going down to a well-craved out basement full of alchemic supplies and scrolls. As Karui went down to examine the scrolls Kiba found an empty patch of floor covered by a fine powder. Rubbing his fingers in it and smelling only puzzled him further.
"This room smells heavy of gunpowder supplies, but this powder here isn't used in any recipe I'm familiar with." Kiba stood up and walked to the work desk, there he found a stack of recently burned pages.
At the scroll library Karui found one emblazoned with the Cloud Village symbol. She opened it and began to read.
"Before you get too into that, can I have one of your blank scrolls?" Kiba asked.
She obliged him and handed over the scroll, it was an average size so it would serve his purposes. With his kunai Kiba first cut three rectangular strips out of the scroll and set them aside. He looked for an calligraphy set on the table and found one. Pricking his thumb he mixed his blood with the ink; when satisfied with the amount, he dipped the brush and began writing.
"I think this is the fire scroll Hiroyuki stole from the archives." Karui said, sounding puzzled. "But I can't see why. This technique is about controlling the sonic frequencies of fire. Anything from making fire sound like human's voice, to sounds only dogs can hear."
Akamaru lowered his head and covered his ears in a joking manner.
Focused on his work, Kiba completed writing on the third piece of paper. He cut holes in the top of each and tied string loops into the holes. Karui looked over, confused.
"Special Inuzuka flash bang strips. They emit a noise significantly louder than usual exploding tags."
With her curiosity sated, she turned her attention to the rest of the desk. Kiba unrolled the remainder of her scroll on the floor and began making the very intricate blood seals he had leaned from ANBU. He made a six point seal surrounded by a flowing script of multiple characters. To the side Kiba wrote an even larger series of characters, some in code others in the few alphabets he knew. Ideally these seals would all be in blood, but Kiba didn't know how much time they had until someone else returned so he worked quickly.
"Looks like they were growing some kind of crystals here. Seeing the effects of heat on their growth, and even the core chemistry and structure." Karui said hesitantly, it was her best guess given the poorly organized work desk.
Setting the remainder of the ink in a place outlined on the scroll, Kiba took a moment to recall the sequence of hand seals he had to make. Carefully he picked up the burnt papers from the desk and laid them inside the six pointed seal he had made. As he prepared to begin forming the seals Karui's attention turned towards him.
"What are you doing?"
"Another little trick that I had to learn to get my mask. When I say so unroll more of that scroll, but do not move the part I have written on."
She complied and took a place sitting next to him. For some reason Kiba had trouble remembering the sequence when she did that. Shaking his head he began again. The seals he made were designed to burn away the bottom of each page while identifying what had been written on it. No page would be complete, but even fragments would betray what they had wanted to hide. However each one required forty hand seals to complete the sequence of activating the identification matrix, transferring ink from the well to the other side of the scroll, and arranging the letters into what was hopefully their original pattern.
"Now… now… now." Kiba said, indicating each time that Karui should unroll more of the scroll.
When the last burned page disintegrated Kiba cracked his knuckles and rubbed them from the strain. The technique was tiresome, but it had a good success rate. The scroll had fresh ink on it, the chakra written letters finally setting into the page. Karui's eyes had been scanning it as it was written, but the order of the pages was not finished until now.
"This one here is a map," Karui said pointing to one of the pages, "almost looks like a map of a mine or caves."
"A mine." Kiba said confirming her suspicion, "On this page someone named Daisuke says that they're ahead of schedule in mining 'clusters'. And this one looks like Hiroyuki is asked to lower the sulfur content of his gunpowder because their digger is complaining about the fumes getting in her eyes."
"Each page seems marked by some kind of seal, but I don't recognize it. The details aren't clear enough."
Akamaru's head shot up and he let out a soft growl before running up the stairs to the entrance. Knowing they would be unable to hide their actions here meant that confrontation was the most likely outcome. Karui drew her sword and walked up the stairs as Kiba rolled up the scroll. Placing it in his bag, he turned to the stairs, but turned back to grab the tags he had just made. When he reached the top of the stairs he found additional kunai and took a moment to tie his tags to those. Karui also looked at the supply racks for a moment. She grabbed a small box from the shelf and placed it in her waist bag.
They readied themselves near the entrance. Kiba noticed fog roll in along the floor. Akamaru began whimpering louder than he usually did. Kiba was afraid the dog would give them away when suddenly it seemed like Akamaru was gone. Quickly turning his head Kiba tried to find his dog but instead found that the entire room seemed swallowed in a cloud. Karui vanished and the walls themselves seemed to fade away. Kiba held his hand up to his face, but even it vanished in the light gray haze. Suddenly an unfamiliar feeling overcame him, one he had been trained to ignore as an ANBU, it was terror.