A/N: And here we go! This will be the beginning of the end for several important characters. Prepare yourselves, for this will be one hell of an operation. I want to thank all of my faithful reviewers for continuing to support me in this last burst of fanfic-writing.
Chapter Sixteen: The Snake's Nest
Morning came to the place where the team had camped to find them already gone. Long before the first sliver of light entered the valley, Neji had ended his watch and roused his entire team, getting them out of their beds and ready for combat hurriedly and without argumentation. Shino had risen quietly and easily, as though he were awake already and hadn't needed sleep in all his life. Sakura had awakened with a huge yawn, obviously tired from working on her patients all night, but heeded the reveille without question and with a serious composure. Kiba and Akamaru had gotten to their feet somewhat tenderly, but proved ready and able to move within moments of waking up; Sakura had done her job well. Naruto and Hinata were found dozing comfortably against each other yet again, and Neji was almost loathe to awaken them. However, the two of them took the wake-up call surprisingly well, with only a slight complaint from Naruto before they both got up dutifully and began preparing. Neji thought he caught them smiling at each other. Jiraiya remained asleep. Once they were all mustered, they had set Akamaru to guard the resting Sennin and left before sunrise.
The team leader knew that he and his subordinates had done everything that they could to make ready for this. Now they would see if it had been enough. Determined not to be intimidated in the face of the impending conflict, he lead the team down from the lush green of the valley and into the dusty waste called the Grave.
"Ugh, man," Kiba choked as they ran down the near-vertical slope of the crater, "This dust is worse than I thought it would be! I can barely smell anything else!"
"You ain't kidding," Naruto said. "My eyes won't stop watering. How old is this place? We're just kicking up clouds of this stuff wherever we step!"
Hinata took him by the hand, leading him through the dust clouds with her superior eyes. "There are some rockier parts down at the bottom," she said. "When we get there, we should be able to avoid most of this. Just a little bit farther, Naruto-kun."
"Really?" Naruto asked. "I never thought I'd care about a rock that much, but right about now, it sounds really, really good."
"Yeah, you've got a point..." agreed Sakura.
"Listen up," Neji said. "We're going to hit the ground soon. When we do, we're going to be silent: visual communication only. Understand?" He didn't wait for the affirmative answers before continuing, "Hinata-sama and I are going to be looking for the entrance to the enemy facility. Hinata-sama, it should be near some old wreckage to the northeast.
"When we find it, we are going to split into two parties. Naruto, Hinata-sama, Shino, and Sakura-san will go looking for Keisuke-san. If you encounter enemies, silence them before they alert the entire facility. Kiba and I will infiltrate stealthily and carry out reconnaissance operations. Shino, you are the leader of the rescue team."
"Understood," Shino acknowledged. He had pulled his jacket hood securely over his head against the dust, and left it there when the team hit horizontal ground and started running over the rocks, using them as stepping stones in an ocean of choking dust. He assumed his leadership role without another word, leaping in front of Naruto and the others to run alongside Neji.
With two Byakugans sweeping the area, the entrance to the underground fortress was located in under a minute. Neji signaled to the others and pointed towards a cluster of specks in the distance—the remains of what had once been a thriving town. The team approached it at maximum speed.
Everything is going smoothly thus far, Neji thought to himself. How long will it be until the trouble starts?
When they reached the ruins, those without Byakugan eyes were greeted with a sight far different than what they had expected. Where they thought they would see petrified wood-and-stone houses, perhaps some of them in pieces or slightly rotted, they saw only scraps of eroded rock in the vague shapes of what might have been the foundations of buildings. This was because the wreckage was older than they were by several centuries; having lain there, prone to the wind and sun, for all that time, most of the stone had turned to sand and the wood had all rotted away in the heat.
They had very little time to look at it, however. As soon as they arrived, Neji motioned for them all to follow him through the entrance: a small genjutsu-obscured man-sized hole, covered by a grate and made to look like a sand drift. Silently, they dropped inside one-by-one.
Beyond that entrance and approximately twelve feet down on a steel ladder, a dimly-lit sandstone corridor extended in two opposite directions. Neji focused his Byakugan harder in the darker environment, evaluating which way was best to move. The left hand hallway led to a sloping stairwell that would take them deeper underground, where it was more likely that a prisoner could be securely held. The right hand path split off in multiple directions; east, west, northwest, and down.
Well-aware that either or both ways could hold doom for the teams, Neji motioned for Shino to take the left path. Shino gave a quick nod and lead Naruto, Hinata, and Sakura down the stairs with him, being silent as only well-trained shinobi could be silent—even Naruto was quiet, though his body and movements were full of anxious intensity.
Well, Neji mused, It has started...
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Naruto followed Shino down the stairway, Sakura at his back and Hinata close at his side. This was the formation that they had agreed upon beforehand, and all agreed that it was well-adjusted to the current close quarters. Being at the front, Shino could use his insects to detect traps and patrols before they became a problem. Naruto, in the middle, could give support in all directions from his current position, and being next to Hinata gave him easy access to additional power via Synchronization, should he need it. Hinata's position enabled her in much the same way while allowing her to keep the entire group in sight. Sakura, being the valuable medic, was in the rear.
The stairs took them several stories below before it stopped descending and opened into a curved hallway, this one walled with packed dirt and stone and looking oddly like a mine shaft. Shino had his bugs check out of sight. A moment later, he signaled to the team with a cautioning gesture, indicating that there were enemies nearby. Soon after, the team could hear footsteps.
Naruto's Ghostly Arms snaked out of their tenketsus, and a number of them reached forward invisibly, forming a thin seal visible only to special eyes like the Byakugan. When it was finished, Naruto nodded to Shino, who took a step back. He did so just in time to see the patrolling henchman round the corner.
The trap seal went off immediately, blasting the floor in a short radius with ice and freezing him in place. A look of shock and hatred crossed the enemy's face, and that face's mouth opened to scream alarm. Shino's bugs muffled all sound that would have come from him, though, preventing their discovery. Finally, to prevent further resistance, Hinata stepped forward, immediately sealing all of his chakra circulation in the amount of time it would have taken to swat a fly. The insects released the man's face, and he fell silent to the ground as the ice beneath him crumbled.
Sakura bent down to check him. He was still conscious; in a few minutes, he might be able to find the strength to move or to call out. More preventative measures were called for. Swiftly, the medic drew a needle and syringe from her gear bag and injected a clear fluid into his arm. In an instant, the enemy was asleep.
Shino nodded, satisfied that the danger was passed, and lead the team onward. If they managed to deal with other patrols this swiftly, they would be in minimal danger for some time.
"Heh," Naruto whispered under his breath to Hinata, "This might just be a cakewalk after all. Haruka-neechan will be surprised when we waltz into her on the front lines again with Niichan..."
"Naruto," Shino whispered sternly, "Your orders are to be silent."
Naruto shut up and reached into his bag, bringing out his canteen for a quick drink. When Shino's back was turned, he stuck his tongue out at him. Hinata saw, and stifled a laugh. She knew that Shino's serious attitude was right, however, and she reached out to pinch his arm, reminding him that this was a mission.
However, Naruto seemed to be occupied with something else. His hand had gone back into his bag to deposit the canteen again and had not come out. An expression of mixed concentration and worry had formed on his face.
It's not here! Naruto thought. Haruka-neechan's prank statue isn't here!
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"Hachoo!" Someone must be thinking about me...
"Got the sniffles, partner?" Keisuke asked from his seat against the wall. "Don't tell me there actually was poison in that water?"
"No," Haruka replied, wiping her nose. "The only problem is you having to stop and rest. Or is it to test your new peepers on me, sukebe-Keisuke?" She turned to look wickedly at him, arching her back and raising her arms over her head, creating a powerful illusion of seduction.
Keisuke's blue pupils did indeed gravitate towards her at every opportunity, almost regardless of what he wanted them to do. They seemed to have a mind of their own. Not that the once-blind man was bothered by it; he was so enamored with the brilliance of the new sensory input—particularly that depicting the lovely Haruka in her dirty skin and ripped clothes—that he hardly cared that she kept catching him at it.
"Well, if you would stop presenting such a target," he said gruffly, "I might be less inclined to 'test' them on you. It's not very polite to tease an old man who's never seen anything, you know."
"Hah," Haruka laughed, "Old man? You're centuries older than me, but you have the sexual maturity of a teenager. You're lucky I haven't smacked some sense into you yet."
"As no doubt you will soon do," Keisuke mumbled under his breath. He thought he saw Haruka smirk. "Anyway, I think I've rested enough. Where do we go now?"
"I don't see how it matters," was Haruka's reply. "We've already fought off about twelve patrols. We're bound to run into a recapture team soon, whichever way we go. I hope you've saved up some strength, because I can only spare so much."
That comment was extremely relevant. Haruka had had to bolster Keisuke's chakra with her own through the Synchronization technique twice now, in spite of his consumption of soldier pills; most of the extra chakra that the medicine generated went into healing. Keisuke could still fight, but doing so was costly if it went on too long, and he would be forced to take another dosage.
"I'll be all right," Keisuke assured. "See if you can find us someplace that won't dead-end on us this time."
Haruka looked at him with a slight expression of venom, but grunted affirmative. He was right, after all, since her Byakugan had been unable to find any path that did not somehow close up before they reached it. She was beginning to think that their captors were playing with them, and that made her angry.
"This way," she said, jerking her head to their left and snapping her Byakugan off.
They moved as fast as Keisuke's healing body would comfortably allow in that direction, up several stairwells. As they went up, the facility began to change around them; the quality of the air became better, and the floor and walls changed from damp stone to dry packed dirt supported by metal beams.
"Found something else to stare at, I see," said Haruka, looking over her shoulder with an evil smirk.
"Would you rather I have your backside imprinted on my cornea?" Keisuke asked, at which his partner simply laughed. "It feels like we're much closer to the surface now," he continued, grinning. "I was thinking that maybe that Byakugan wasn't such a bad thing for me to have sired after all. Or at least, you weren't so usele... is that light ahead?"
Haruka's head whipped from him to directly in front of her almost too quickly to see. "It is!" she exclaimed. "Thank the gods, thank the Great Fa... er, you! We're getting out of this hell hole!" She started hurrying faster up the earthen hallway, excitement getting the better of her judgement.
"Watch yourself," Keisuke said. "There might be a welcoming party on the other side. There was one the last time I broke out of Orochimaru's place."
Her partner's warning caused her to hesitate. She thought about turning on her Byakugan, the veins barely standing out on her temples, but decided against it. Keisuke observed her, wondering what she was thinking. He didn't wait long, though, for she soon turned her head towards him again, smiling with confident battle-lust. He felt a shiver run down his spine; this was his partner, the Sadistic Haruka whom he loved, in her element.
"I'll let them surprise me," she said. "No matter what the hell it is, you and me are going to bust through it like bats out of hell, Keisuke. You with me?"
How could he not be?
"Yeah," he said. "You know I wouldn't miss it, partner. Together, then?"
Haruka's only reply was to grin wider and take off running again. He followed after her long, dark braid as it whipped in the air behind her, as fast as he could manage. After a while, she slowed down to match his pace, and they ran side-by-side towards the light ahead of them. The Arms of the Rokujuuyon Reiude moved of their own volition, establishing Keisuke's connection to his partner with the ease of long-practiced routine.
Charging into deadly battle together as one entity, Keisuke thought. I never realized how much I missed that thrill. At that moment, they reached the light, and rushed through the opening into the waiting wide open air...
To discover that they were not quite free yet. They now found themselves in what looked like a large arena or stadium; it was wide and domed, and was very well-lit from an electric source. Where the generator for the power was, they could only guess, but it would explain why the routes Haruka had picked before had closed on them, since such a generator would power cameras, as well. The only difference between this chamber and a stadium was the absence of seats for onlookers.
"What is this?" Haruka said, staring around her. Keisuke heard disappointment in her voice, and knew it was because she had been deprived of her deadly struggle. He thought, however, that she wouldn't be deprived much longer. The door slammed shut behind them, locking them in.
"My guess would be a trap," Keisuke said. "This is probably where that recapture team you wanted will show up, once they figure out we sprung it. Are you happy?"
"That they'll finally stop toying and come up for us? Yeah. That they're expecting us to just sit here and wait while they get their fat asses ready? No way." She huffed as she took a seat on the dirt floor.
Keisuke maintained the Synch, and reached into his last functional pocket for a soldier pill. He had only two left, but now was as good a time as any to use it, seeing as they were about to be swarmed with enemies. Popping it into his mouth and swallowing it dry, he sat down with her, and they used each other's backs to prop each other up.
"Be patient," he reassured her. "They'll be up before you know it."
"They'd better be," she puffed. "I'm sick of all this dismal waiting. One way or another, I want to fight this out now."
Keisuke laughed, the sound deep and reverberating in the open air. His smile was wider than it had been in days
"Glad to have you back, Sadist. I missed you."
"I know," she said, reaching behind her to squeeze his hand. "And I'll never lose track of my favorite target again. I'll kill these freaks before I let them have you a third time, and if that doesn't work out, I'll kill you."
To his own surprise, Keisuke found that comment reassuring. "Thanks," he said. "I think I'd rather die than keep living like that anyway."
On that note, they sat quietly in the brightness of the high dome, waiting for their final challenge to come and test them.
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Shino's party faced the same minimal resistance as they trudged through the dirty, winding shaft, wondering when it would end. Their walk continued for three long minutes without any forks, descent, or ascent. Whenever they encountered a guard or a patrol unit, there was only one or two enemies at most, and not all of them were shinobi, even; many of them were scientists or technicians.
So it seems that Orochimaru has a full laboratory facility here, Shino thought. It is located where no one would bother to look for it, that is for certain. It would be difficult to determine how long ago he began operating here, as well. This could mean there are many more tricks and traps hidden within than we originally guessed.
Yet they had encountered none of those traps just yet. Something wasn't right about that, to Shino. Was this facility really that new, or had the traps been purposefully deactivated, trying to lure them into a false sense of security so that they would be lured into a greater trap?
Lost in these thoughts, Shino barely heard the warning screech from his bugs in time. He turned just as the tentacle-like vines burst out of the ceiling and made a grab for his comrades behind him. They were lightning-quick, faster than they had ever been before, and Shino had just enough time to throw himself into Naruto and knock him out of the way before they reached him. The bugs slammed as a single force into Hinata and Sakura, pushing them away.
Deprived of other targets—or perhaps having attacked other targets initially to snare their real objective—the thick plants wrapped themselves around Shino, constricting him until he could not move, and began to draw him up into the ceiling where they had come from. The insects swarmed after their master, attacking the vines that bound him with all their power. The vines were thicker than before, though, and did not give as they hauled up their prize. In moments, Shino's lower legs had disappeared into the dirt, which had amazingly softened to a gelatinous quality.
Naruto was the first to regain his composure, and was on his feet in an instant. "Oi, you stupid vines!" he yelled, setting chakra swirling in his palm. "You damned mud hole! Let him go, or I'll blast you to pieces!"
"Shino-kun!" Hinata gasped. How had she not seen this coming? She looked above her, trying to see past the earth in the ceiling, and was shocked to discover that she could not. It was completely obscured by some force she could not define.
"Naruto, Hinata, Sakura!" Shino said, a commanding tone in his voice. "Follow your orders. You must be silent, and not draw the entire fortress to you." He was being absorbed into the ceiling fast, up to his waist now, and though the bugs had now chewed through the vines completely, the gelatinous mud still held fast to him.
"You want us to just let you go?" Sakura asked.
"Let him go?" Naruto echoed, the Rasengan complete. He began adding wind manipulation to it, and it glowed with intensity as the change was slowly made. "Of course we won't! I won't let another person get taken the way Keisu..."
"Naruto!" Shino commanded, his bugs withdrawing into his clothes, "I am already caught. This must be my fight. Now, follow my orders, and continue the rescue mission without me. If I survive, I will find you later."
Naruto let his Futon: Rasengan blow out, incomplete, as he stared in disbelief at Shino. He remembered, a long time ago, how Chouji, Neji, Kiba, and Shikamaru had all done the exact same thing, occupying an enemy so that he could go on, attempting to reclaim their lost comrade. That time, the mission had failed. Would it be a repeat of last time?
It turned out he did not have a choice in the matter, for Shino's head was absorbed into the muck before he could argue. The dirt solidified behind him, cutting off all chance of recovery.
"Damn it," Naruto said. I knew it. The statue being gone was a bad omen...
"Naruto, Hinata," Sakura said, putting a hand on her blond teammate's shoulder. "There's nothing we can do about it now..."
"I know," Naruto said. "We have to keep going. Come on, let's get away from this place..."
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It felt as though he were suffocating, but Shino knew it would not last. The enemy above would not let him die this way. Not after the way the battle had ended the last time. She would want to fight again in the same way: fairly and with no unfair advantages. Therefore he held his breath, commanded the insects to remain safely inside of him, and waited.
Sure enough, he was greeted with solid ground and air in very short order. He stood up, meaning to dust the mud from himself, only to find that it slid off of him like water, returning to the floor where it lay dry and flat as the ceiling from which the vines had sprung.
However, the bug user wasted no time marveling over this wondrous soil. He scoured his surroundings with his eyes, looking for his opponent. He took careful note of the chamber around him, of its perfect roundness, of the unsupported soil of which it was entirely made, of the softly glowing plants which were rooted in the walls and ceiling, and of the utter lack of any sort of harmful bloom mounting a preemptive strike. Then at last, he located his enemy.
She stood erect and calm as she always had, still without her cloak, but allowing the darkness of the room to cloak her. No vines or needlers snaked out from beneath the clothing when he turned to face her. She waited patiently for him to acknowledge her presence verbally. After being totally sure that she meant to fight with the same fairness, Shino obliged her.
"I had not thought that you would ally yourself with Orochimaru," he said. "The Kumo have even attacked Orochimaru's allies in this war. Do you truly fight for your village, or for your own aims, as Uchiha Sasuke does?"
"Would it surprise you, Aburame Shino, if I told you that I do not know exactly why I am fighting anymore?" she asked him.
Shino thought a moment before replying, "No, it would not. War changes people in many ways, as I have recently experienced for myself. My own teammate, Kiba, for example, now has a disdain for fighting in cities and towns that he has never expressed before. Uzumaki Naruto was unlike himself for a period of time, until Hinata helped him. It would not be at all unusual, then, for your opinions to change."
Ayaka stood and pondered his words. Silence stretched between them in which Shino thought he might have made an impact on his enemy, despite knowing that she would have guarded herself against psychological warfare. Neither of them moved for a period of time that went unmeasured.
Finally, however, she answered him. "I believe I understand what you mean to say. What I thought I was fighting for turned out to be much different from reality. One thing is certain, however: I still wish to resolve our conflict."
Shino had thought she would. He took a fighting posture, and ordered his bugs to make ready. "Then come," he said. "I will not run or hide, and neither will you, this time."
Ayaka gave a curt nod as she flipped through her opening set of seals, making needler flowers rise up around her. "No," she agreed, "I will not."
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The shadows favored Neji and Kiba well. Their chosen path was lighted only with the dimmest of torches, and the dirt floors absorbed the impact that their feet made upon them. They were able to hide from enemy patrols—usually a formation of three to five armed guards—with relative ease because of this. The fact that there were only two of them to hide was also beneficial.
Neji's Byakugan peered around them, searching for signs of anything of interest, and the air, much cleaner and fresher than in the wasteland above, allowed Kiba's nose to easily detect incoming enemies. Using these talents to their fullest, they made their way deep into the facility. Their search of the western and northwestern wings yielded nothing that they could have made use of; the former was quarters for the guards and the other facility staff and the latter turned out to be incomplete construction.
When they slipped silently past another guard station into the eastern wing, however, they began to notice more functional areas. There they found a small hospital, some storage areas filled with chemicals and medical supplies, and hangars for heavy machinery. Searching deeper, they found something even better than that, something which truly said that they had found a useful path; one corridor was lined with medical, mechanical, and chemical laboratories.
Where there are laboratories, Neji knew, there must be a scientific database.
They continued onward, searching for that database and the plans that might be held within it. Neji knew that they were approaching it, too, for as they crept further and further into the east wing, the patrols that they encountered became more and more frequent. They also increased in size, making it somewhat harder to slip by unnoticed. Kiba almost was seen twice before Neji finally located a small room which housed several large computers and a man and woman in technician's coats.
The Hyuuga Jounin made motions with his hands, telling Kiba which door he wanted, how many enemies were within, and then signaled that the enemies were non-combatants, which he knew Kiba would appreciate; the wild nin's compassion for civilians would probably not go away for a long time.
The next moment, the two of them were through the door—which they were pleasantly surprised to discover had carelessly been left unlocked—and had knocked out the soft targets inside. They closed the door behind them, taking the keys from the woman's coat and locking it as it should have been.
"Phew," Kiba said when they were safely locked in. "I was sure that I'd gotten us caught back there."
"Don't linger on that thought," Neji ordered. "Be focused on the mission. Do you know anything about computers?"
"Not a damned thing," Kiba admitted.
"Look on some of the screens and see if you find anything interesting," Neji instructed. "Don't touch anything that you aren't sure about."
Kiba hesitated. "Damn... If I didn't know you could whip me in a heartbeat, I might complain. Seriously, sending a dog to do a nerd's work..."
He gave up and began peering into the nearest screen while Neji sat at one of the consoles, punching keys. Apparently, the Hyuuga genius did know a thing or two about these machines; perhaps Kiba would ask him where he could get a crash-course on it later.
"Let's see," the wild nin started. "This one says, 'prognosis ready, hit any key...' which one's the..."
"Let me see it," Neji ordered. Kiba jumped out of his way as he came over an quickly tapped the key marked, 'enter.' The message Kiba had read disappeared, replaced by a diagram and a large statistical readout. Kiba couldn't make sense of the numbers, but he looked at the diagram, he was surprised to see a familiar figure spread across it. It was different in many ways, but it was still recognizable.
"Hey," Kiba said. "Isn't that...?"
"Yes," Neji confirmed. "It seems they were not working for who we thought they were."
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Naruto, Hinata, and Sakura hurried full-speed through the dirt hall, quickly dispatching all the enemies that got in their way. There weren't many of them, and they fell easily, even without Shino's aid. The nervousness and anxiety that had infected the bug user was beginning to infect them, as well.
"They already know we're here," Naruto said, throwing caution, as well as Neji's order of silence, to the winds. "We've gotta hurry, now, or we'll lose Keisuke and Shino."
"Can we really search the entire place that fast?" Sakura asked. "With Kiba and Neji, we might, but without them, without the advantage of surprise..."
"We don't have any choice," Naruto growled.
He received no arguments to that declaration. They ran wordlessly through the twisting tunnel, the only noises being those of their lungs sucking in air. Eventually, even the patrols stopped coming.
At last, Hinata's voice spoke up from the quiet. "The path splits into two ahead," she announced. "Both of them lead further down into the ground. Which one are we going to take?"
"Both of them," Naruto said. Without waiting to be asked how they would safely accomplish that feat, he ran his hands through seals, molding his chakra in preparation. Boar, dog, bird, monkey, sheep...
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
Hopping alongside them suddenly, emerging from puffs of smoky gray, were two frogs nearly the size of Naruto himself. One of them had skin that was colored deep red and very warty. The other frog was light yellow and smoother. Both of them kept up with their human counterparts easily, and both of them wore dark cloaks around their necks with the crest of the Frog Boss embroidered upon them.
"Gamakichi, Gamatatsu!" Naruto told them quickly, "Go with Sakura-chan down the left fork, there, and guard her with your lives! Me and Hinata are gonna take the right one!"
"Geez," said the red toad, Gamakichi, "You sure are bossy these days, Naruto. Oyajii isn't going to be happy, bringing me to all these dangerous places."
"I know, I know," Naruto said. "It's really important, though. Tell Gama-Oyabun I'll compensate him later. Thanks a lot!"
And with that, they reached the fork, the two groups splitting off to search the different directions before anyone but Naruto really registered what was going on. One thing was for sure; the energetic blond was definitely fired up and in a hurry.
"Famn, frog," Gamakichi said to his brother and the human girl he was protecting, "I know it's Naruto we're talking about here, but he's really getting to be over the top. How the hell does he plan to compensate for this? I was having a really nice bath, you know..."
"I'm not really sure either," Sakura told the frog, "But he's been on edge for a while now, and he just watched another of his friends get taken away, even if it might only be for a while. Now, he has the chance to get one of them back, and he's probably clinging to that chance with all he has."
"Again?" Gamakichi asked. "Geez, frog, he really needs to learn to keep a handle on his friends. First that Sasuke character and now this! He's letting them disappear like his ramen noodles!"
"Noodles?" Gamatatsu asked, turning his head to look gluttonously at his brother. The yellow frog was hungry as usual; he wanted to know where he could get some tasty noodles. Unfortunately, looking at his red brother meant that he was no longer watching where he was going, which led him to fall easy prey to the trap that lay waiting.
Before Sakura or Gamakichi could warn him, his rear right leg landed squarely on the loose mound of dirt beneath which the trigger was hidden. The floor beneath them, which was actually a gigantic trap door, opened downward, and gravity seized them all in mid-stride.
"Gamatatsu, you dope!" yelled Gamakichi.
"Wheee!" was the yellow frog's reply as they began falling.
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Hinata followed Naruto as he charged down his path, descending deeper into the earth. The hallway around them morphed as they progressed, changing from dirt and steel supports to flat, undecorated stone lit dimly by torchlight. Naruto squinted, trying to make his eyes adjust to the lower light level before they were ready, and was forced to slow down.
"Damn it," he said, "It's too dark. I can't see that far ahead."
"Naruto-kun," Hinata interrupted, "There isn't very much to see. This path is a dead end."
Naruto stopped running a mere twenty meters from the solid stone wall in front of him and peered harder. His eyes adjusted to see that she was right. He walked up to it, pushing on it to see if there were any hidden catches or mechanisms. He found nothing, and turned to the Hyuuga girl.
"Can you see anything?" he asked.
"No," she replied. "The walls around us are all solid rock. I can't see anything hidden behind it but stone and dirt."
Naruto stared at her with a strange look on his face. Hinata struggled to make sense of it. Is that, she wondered, his pleading face?
"Are you sure?" he asked her. "You couldn't see the thing that grabbed Shino, before. Can you check one more time?"
Hinata didn't see how it would help; even if the same force that had blocked her sight of Shino's attacker was at work here, she had no way of knowing how to counter it. Still, she couldn't think of any reason not to check, and since Naruto seemed insistent, she refocused her Byakugan and looked again.
She fought to keep from gaping in surprise; as she swept her eyes to the right, a mechanism blatantly revealed itself to her, as though it had been hiding and had only now decided to come out. Wondering what was going on, she moved over to inspect it from a closer distance.
"Did you find something?" Naruto asked, his face suddenly hopeful.
"I think..."
Before Hinata finished her sentence, before she could even get her hand through the hidden panel into the mechanism, a huge grinding and whirring disrupted her. The whole corridor began to shake, and she stumbled backwards into Naruto, who like a domino fell against the back wall. They watched in awe as a whole great slab of the stone wall across from them slid loudly into the floor. When it was done, they stood like statues, almost expecting hell itself to come spewing out of the opening.
But nothing emerged from the darkness beyond the opening.
"Well," Naruto said, pushing off the wall, "I guess this means an invitation to go in."
Knowing it was more than likely a trap, Hinata followed him as he crossed the stone hall into the pitch blackness of the room before them. Neither she nor Naruto showed any surprise when the wall panel slammed back up behind them again, locking them in darkness so deep that even her Byakugan could not penetrate it. She felt Naruto's Reiude brush up against the openings in her chakra circulatory system, asking for entrance, and she let them in gladly; in this all-consuming dark, the feelers that Naruto had learned to use from Keisuke were as close to vision as they would get.
They walked cautiously and close to each other, feeling around them for their surroundings and any enemies that might be lurking nearby. All that the Ghostly Arms could pick up so far, however, was the floor. Apparently, they were in a very large room. Hinata felt herself growing tense; she felt naked and exposed in all that open space without her eyes to guide her. Naruto sensed her nervousness through their Synchronization, and sent a warm pulse of chakra her way.
"Relax," he said. "If even you can't see, they probably can't see, either."
"I wouldn't be so cocky if I were you," drawled a voice from all around them, echoing in the wide space. "But you're right; I can't see you. We can fix that, easily enough, though..."
Suddenly, the chamber was no longer dark. Electric light began dancing and sparking along the walls, ceiling, and floor—raw electricity, moving in multicolored bolts all around the room. Naruto and Hinata could see that they jumped between paper tags that were stuck at intervals all around the room. Suddenly, Hinata had a very good idea of what it was that threatened them.
"Are you scared, you little Hyuuga bitch?" the voice asked, ringing out from all directions again. "You should be. Your dark little friend got me good back there, but he didn't finish me off. This time, he won't be here to save you, and neither will your animal friends with the good noses..."
"You're not scaring anyone, you dick!" Naruto shouted back. "Show your ugly face before I start blowing things up to find you!"
"Show myself?" said the voice of Hikaru, the electricity becoming more intense as he spoke. "Hardly necessary. I'll have fun killing you in front of your tramp, loud-mouthed blondie."
Lightning burnt the very air as it arced its way toward Naruto. The unseen enemy, determined to have vengeance for its prior losses, would hear no pleas for mercy.
Naruto, determined to protect Hinata and save his lost friends, would give none.
OoOoOoOo Big Blinking Cliffhanger no Jutsu! End Chapter Sixteen oOoOoOoO
Next Chapter: The simple rescue and recon mission, within minutes of beginning, as already become a horrible battleground that heavily favors the enemy. What will happen to the team, all separated from each other and without the support of Jiraiya or Sasuke?