AN: Welcome to the first grammatically glorious, fantastic, BETA'D chapter of PorcOrch! Yes that's right, Beta'd! woo! The wonderful Moderndayportia has agreed to lend me her considerable talents as a Beta-reader for this fic, so I will hopefully be abusing her skills for many chapters to come…so a huge thank you to her for her patience, support and guidance.

Thank you to reviewers and favourite-ers alike, I really hope you enjoy this chapter, it's a nice long one too!


Chapter 17: Bloodsport For All

A strong grip around his neck.

Bony. Unbreakable.

The cold water fills his nose, clawing like fire through his lungs. No matter how much he tries to suppress the urge, his body thrashes and twists in a futile attempt at escape. The long fingers pincered around the nape of his neck tighten and push him down further. Bubbles of precious oxygen slide past his face like a fleeting caress as they travel upward, a gentle ghosting touch across his cheeks that feels foreign rather that reassuring. He wills himself to be still, tries to force the fear and panic back into its box.

But it's difficult.

Impossible.

How do you defend against a natural instinct? He doesn't understand. A patchwork of inky green is starting to lace its way across the back of his eyelids and the raging fire in his lungs is starting to dull to a numb prickling. His own hands start to slip from the lip of the barrel as his limbs begin losing their rigidity.

Only then is he pulled up.

The vice-like grip shifting to knot into his hair, the scoring pain of fingernails dragging across his scalp helps him focus, and when his face finally breaks free of the surface, he sucks air in greedily between spluttering coughs.

"Who are you?" a low voice asks.

Blinking fast to dispel the cloudy blanket shrouding his vision, he chokes out the last of the water before his flushed face hardens into a flawless slate of marble, unblinking and unmoving, except for the minute shifting of his thin, pale lips.

"I am no one," he replies softly, detached and wholly composed.

"What are you?"

"I am Sumiiro."

"This is your name?"

"No. My weapon."

"Elaborate."

"I am a Tabula Rasa*," he starts. "I am everything I am asked to be and nothing more. I am whatever my master needs. I am whatever skills and services I can offer."

The figure behind him releases the grip on his hair.

"Stand. Face me," the voice commands.

Without hesitation he does as he is told and waits as the masked man looks him over appraisingly.

"You are improving," Kuma says flatly. This is not said as praise or out of kindness, but simply as a statement of fact.

Sumiiro feels no pride or warmth about his development. He only nods once in acknowledgement.

"…but you need to understand that you can't stop the pain. It's not about stopping it, it's about accepting it. Once you stop fighting pain and start embracing it, you'll really see a difference. Pain will always be pain, but it doesn't have to hurt."

"Will that be all sempai? I have three hours of Kata to run through."

"You understand why you were bought here?"

"I went to visit Shin in the infirmary without permission." This is just another simple fact, and he answers immediately without fear or remorse. Although to some the experience of being repeatedly half-drowned would be considered a punishment, to Sumiiro it is just a reinforcement of his training.

"That's correct. What was your motivation?"

Sumiiro pauses to consider his answer, not knowing how to communicate such a desire and aware that even if he could articulate it, he wouldn't really comprehend it.

"Shin was in my team for the next mission. I was merely assessing his condition to confirm whether a replacement would be needed," he says instead.

"Are you worried about his condition?"

"Worried? I do not understand," Sumiiro replies.

"Did you experience fear when you found out that Shin was ill?"

"No."

Fear is something he does understand because it walks hand in hand with pain. Pain, which is purely physical in its manifestation.

Fear - a natural reaction to external stimulus- is a feeling that is slowly being chiselled away in sessions such as this.

"It has been reported that he asked for you during surgery. That he referred to you as 'brother' when he was feeling scared and alone."

The words are just words, but Sumiiro winces ever so slightly at the word 'brother'. To the casual observer a tiny stilling of the eyes on an already unnaturally rigid face wouldn't even register. But Kuma is not a casual observer, and although his student is very adept at shutting off his emotions, he is not quite good enough. They may be tiny little ripples across the surface of a placid lake, but Kuma knows that with the right amount of pressure even tiny ripples can turn into big waves.

"Towel yourself down. We have an hour of electroshock."

Yes. Fear is a response to pain, an instinctive reaction driven by the body's need to protect itself. An impulse as normal as blinking.

Fight or flight.

As Sumiiro calmly follows his senpai towards the chair with humming chrome pads and trailing wires he feels nothing.

*

The memory was aggressively vivid and the latest in a long list of painful recollections that the presence of his former senpai had sparked in Sai.

Kuma.

Just the name alone had caused a small ribbon of adrenaline to wind itself tightly around his lungs when Kenta explained the situation. Sai had not been prepared for the strange swirl of emotion that rose so unexpectedly, and only by utilising his training to the fullest had he managed to force the sensation back down into the deep pit of his stomach. Yet, seeing the man in the flesh was another story.

The ANBU mask Kuma wore was his only recognizable characteristic: he was tall, but not oddly so, his body muscled in a lean, sinewy way but with enough bulk to make him appear neither too slight nor too built, his hair colour a nondescript mousy brown cropped close to the scalp. He was completely forgettable, just like every good ANBU soldier should be. The mask, though, could belong to no one else, because to Sai the red painted tear marks running down its cheeks and the grisly, toothy grin were the features that made up Kuma's face, features that stirred up more than just memories. He could paint that 'face' with his eyes closed.

"My name is Sai now," he answered Kuma's questioning look quietly, but his words easily travelled the short distance between them.

"Name?" Kuma asked, cocking his head curiously.

"Yes. It is what my friends call me."

"…Friends?" Kuma made a grunting sound in the back of his throat. "Danzo-sama has clearly kept you in the field too long."

"Perhaps," Sai responded with a vague close-eyed smile, his hands trembling minutely.

This did not go unnoticed by Kuma though, who looked at the quivering edge of Sai's tanto with interest.

"You're feeling," his silken voice declared.

Sai's grip tightened around the carved ebony handle and the blade stilled completely, flashing liquid bright and orange in the dawning light.

Yes, he was feeling. Probably more than he had ever felt. A great swell of muddy emotion was surging up his throat, threatening to overflow.

There were so many things he wanted to say, and so many things he wanted to ask, but he knew if he opened his mouth all that would come out would be a chaotic, garbled scream. Instead, he ground his teeth together inaudibly and allowed his sooty eyelashes to flutter closed for the briefest of moments.

This was the man that trained him.

This was the man that tortured him.

This was the man that had taken away his ability to think for himself, had taken away his memories, had taken away his first strong bond.

But this was also the man that had taken away pain and fear and confusion. Since joining Team Kakashi, Sai had formed new bonds to replace the cavernous loss of his adopted brother. He now had people that he cared about strongly: Naruto and Sakura. He had a growing list of friendships with the rest of his peers and a healthy respect for his senpai, Yamato and Kakashi. He had his own motivations and goals now too: to ensure the safety of these 'precious people' and to one day help reunite his team with their lost member. He had been given more in the last year and a half by those people than what had been taken from him in the first place.

But all this was riddled with deep uncertainty, social awkwardness, an inability to understand why his teammates rolled their eyes in exasperation at him so often, or the way they looked at him with pinched eyebrows and tight half-smiles…the way they looked at him with pity.

Sai understood more than they thought he did.

Kuma, two dimensional, unmovable and fearless, represented a life that Sai could safely say he missed at times. In Root there had been no moral compass to lead him away from his objectives, no messy emotion, no pity, just the drive to complete his missions and unquestioning loyalty toward his superiors.

"It's weak," Kuma's cool breath against his ear bought Sai quickly out of his introspection in an instant. He must have still been suffering the after effects of a concussion.

"SAI! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" Naruto's scream rang out across the debris strewn courtyard. His cerulean eyes fixed on Sai's, swimming with panic.

Naruto was so intently focused on the scene before him that he missed the gnarled club swinging towards his head. Yugao's katana severed it in two just before it could make contact, and Sai winced at the near miss. Naruto was running towards him then, snarling and toothy as Kuma's tanto was laid flat against Sai's shoulder, its blade cold and biting against his throat.

"It is weak," Sai confirmed, blinking slowly.

Naruto was almost upon them, still screaming obscenities, his fist raised and aimed toward Kuma's face.

"…but," Sai continued almost wistfully, "I find I quite like it."

"So what will you do, Sumiiro?"

"I think I'd like to test my mettle against you senpai, just to see how weak I truly am," Sai replied pleasantly, his smile broadening.

"Then let's take this somewhere more private."

Kuma's free hand caught Sai's wrist and the air folded down around them. Naruto stumbled into empty space and looked around wildly for his missing teammate.

Tenzou's feet slapped loudly against the terracotta tiles of the manor's roof, their rhythm staggered and uneven from exhaustion. It had seemed like a good idea at the time; in his chakra-drained state he knew that he was largely a hindrance to his currently more able team, and the grand roof, three storeys up, had looked like the perfect vantage point from which to pick off the stragglers and keep a tactical eye on the battlefield. That was before he realised that Nakamizu's personal guard were in fact double the number they had initially calculated and that three of them had decided to follow him as he picked his way up the balcony's and gutters toward the red-tiered roof.

A stream of freezing water smashed into the brick chimney he had ducked behind, causing it to explode outward in a soggy rain of rubble. Tenzou cursed loudly as the water-slicked tiles gave out under his feet, sliding down like dominoes toward the large drop. Charging the last vestiges of his chakra into his feet, he pushed up and leapt toward another chimneystack, heaving himself upward with straining arms. He sprinted along the precipice, weaving in and out of the tall smoking funnels and hoping like hell that he wouldn't fall.

With a tired groan he realized that he had finally run out of places to hide. Three storeys below him ornamental gardens sprawled into the distance. Sharp igneous rocks lining a manmade waterfall jutted upward from amongst a hundred species of grass and bamboo. Delicate pink water lilies looked up temptingly from a huge rippling basin, and the glinting bodies of large, brightly patterned koi moved fluidly though the plant life close to the waters surface.

Would jumping down without chakra to soften his fall really hurt that much?

Yes. Yes it would, he concluded, once more running his eyes over the toothy surface regretfully.

His heels hanging over the ledge, Tenzou turned to face his pursuers. The three renegade Taki-nin approached him cautiously, fanning out to block any route back the way he had come. Their faces were tense, their stances nervously combative, and it was almost embarrassing for Tenzou, who stood with shoulders slumped and his hands wrapped firmly around twin kunai. They were clearly chuunin, perhaps tokubetsu jounin at a push. Their form was sloppy, their tactics predictable, their water jutsu mediocre in both rank and power.

He knew that his only chance was to get close enough to utilise taijutsu and pray that his reaction time was still sharp enough to best them with a simple melee offensive.

It didn't look likely, however, as all three men hung back and put their hands together in perfect synchronization.

Tiger, Dog, Monkey, Snake, Bird…

Tenzou rolled his eyes. How unoriginal.

He had never really put much thought into how he would die, but he had offhandedly hoped it would be at the hands of a great enemy warrior, or while asleep in bed at the over-ripe age of eighty-two.

However, Tenzou had never envisioned dying at the hands of three unskilled, boring ninja like the ones who were about to throw him to his doom using a water technique that he used to water his house plants.

How embarrassing.

Three jets of water burst from their mouths, arching up into the yellowing sky. Tenzou watched their progress as they reached the zenith and then started the inevitable race downward towards his position. For what felt like the hundredth time, he tried to call chakra into his feet, his legs, his hands, his arms, anywhere, but his depleted stores just crackled and sparked uselessly under his skin. He realised with a detached kind of acceptance that, short of a miracle, he would die within the next two seconds.

"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet!"

An open mouthed dragon reared up like a tower behind Tenzou, swallowing the three thin streams in its cavernous mouth before, foaming and thrashing, it plummeted down toward the three enemy nin. One had the foresight to drop his hands and leap backwards towards a higher portion of roof, the other two weren't so lucky and the tidal force of the dragon swallowed them up, dragging their shock-rigid bodies and a rain of terracotta tiles over the roof's edge.

"Maa, now's really not the time to be taking a shower is it Tenzou?" Kakashi's lightly chiding voice whispered close to his ear.

Tenzou, to his credit, managed not to fall off the roof in shock and instead only turned to meet Kakashi with a wide, grateful smile.

"Nice to see you in one piece Senpai," he responded before quirking his head to the now empty basin beneath then, "although it seems a shame to destroy such a lovely water-feature, some of those koi must have been at least fifteen years old."

"I'm sure buying new fish will be the last thing on Nakamizu's mind when we're done with him," Sakura's voice chirped as she hauled herself over the edge of the chimney and moved to stand next to her two sensei.

"What are we going to do about him?" Tenzou inquired, pointing to the stumbling figure of the last of Nakamizu's personal guard. The man in question was shooting panicked glances over his shoulder as he slipped and slid over the uneven roofing, slowly but surely putting as much distance as possible between him and the three figures regarding him coolly from the lowest point of the rooftop.

"I'd say Genma has it covered," Sakura calmly replied as all three watched the fleeing enemy freeze mid-stride and then crumple backwards at an awkward angle, four glinting senbon protruding from one point in his throat.

A figure appeared atop an adjacent chimney and waved cheerfully at them.

"Did you see how sexy that aim was!" he called enthusiastically.

All three of them cringed.

"His word choice never ceases to amaze me," Tenzou muttered tiredly.

"Agreed," Sakura and Kakashi responded in unison.

Down in the courtyard they could easily distinguish Naruto standing with a handful of clones near Yugao. They were still outnumbered, and it was obvious that their energy was flagging as they were pushed slowly towards the manor walls by the half dozen ninja still fighting. Yugao was clearly favouring one leg, her katana dipping lower than her perfect form would usually allow, and Naruto's clones, all looking bruised and filthy, were guarding her in a semi-circle with kunai drawn and ready.

"I should help them," Sakura said tightly, readying herself for the long jump down.

"Kakashi and I can track down Nakamizu," Genma called across to them. "If that's alright with you Captain," he addressed Tenzou tentatively, unsure of what he was actually supposed to call him.

"What about Kuma?" Kakashi asked.

"Sai's with him," Tenzou started, "but I think we should get to them as soon as possible. Something was off about that confrontation."

"Aside from them chatting away like a couple of bosom-buddies?" snorted Genma.

The group fell into a brief worried silence until Sakura broke it.

"Sai's our friend. He won't betray us," she sounded completely sure, her voice strong and a little hostile.

Tenzou nodded and paced towards Sakura. "You'll have to help me down," he mumbled with a faint blush.

The shadow across her face broke and Sakura beamed a hundred kilowatt smile before winking playfully and taking hold of his arm. "Aww, Yamato-sensei, you poor baby."

"Sakura…" Kakashi looked tense, his gaze restlessly shifting between her and the courtyard, his visible eye tight with a mix of emotion: worry, concern, perhaps irritation.

"I'll be fine Kaka-sensei. Go pummel that fat bastard for me."

Despite the inordinate amount of bad luck they'd had on this mission, Kakashi knew that Sakura could handle a group of ragtag, ill trained rogue ninja, but that didn't stymie the uncomfortable build up of tension simmering along his shoulders. After all they'd been through in the past few hours he didn't want to let her out of his sight. He was aware that it was a completely irrational and unprofessional reaction.

The Copy-nin sighed, his shoulders heaving just a little before they shifted back into an apathetic slope.

"Be careful," he grumbled before stepping into empty space and disappearing from sight. She tightened her grip on Tenzou's arm and tried to ignore the clearly incredulous look Genma sent her way. Even with the ANBU mask on she could tell that his eyebrows were touching his hairline.

"Good luck." She muttered, feeling a little embarrassed and not really knowing why.

With blue chakra bubbling across the soles of her feet she threw herself and her incapacitated sensei off the ledge.

Kuma and Sai snapped back into existence inside a large circular ballroom, Sai staggering to put as much distance between them as possible. It might have been the lingering concussion or perhaps just the speed at which they had travelled, but he felt nauseatingly light-headed and unsteady on his feet. Stumbling backward he braced himself against the highly polished surface of a grand piano. The keys clunked tunelessly as his back hit them and the discordant sound echoed around the empty expanse of the room, as did the noise of Kuma's clapping footfalls against the highly polished flooring as he walked slowly toward Sai, his tanto poised at a perfect forty-five degree angle from his body.

"What do you hope to achieve by killing me?" Kuma questioned as Sai straightened.

"The safety of my friends. The locations of your sleeper agents within Konoha's walls."

"Why would you want to disrupt this plan? In the short term it may seem as though I am stretching the parameters of my mission, but in the long term it will lead to Danzo's inauguration as Hokage. Which is, after all, our mission."

"Our mission first and foremost is the protection of Konoha. Or have you forgotten that?"

"Konoha will be stronger than ever, free from softness and vulnerability. It will become hard and sharp under Danzo, transforming Konoha's fabled will of fire into a burning lance that will cut through our enemies."

"The will of fire burns brightly within Konoha's people because of the compassion and bonds they share. If your mission succeeds, there will be no Konoha."

"A new leader for a new village. A blank slate; like me, like you. It is a necessary step."

Sai considered this as Kuma approached, his fine dark eyebrows pinching slightly. He understood the logic, he really did, and part of him really wanted to return to what he had been before, wanted that blank slate…and that desire demonstrated how far he had fallen. He shouldn't want anything. If he yielded to Kuma, the confusion and self-doubt would vanish and Sai could go back to a world where paintings didn't need titles, where shinobi didn't need friends, where rules couldn't be twisted or broken or misinterpreted.

A blank slate; like me, like you…

"No. Not like me." Sai declared, jerking his chin up defiantly and surging forward.

Genma whistled long and low through his teeth as he followed Kakashi out of the infirmary, a large converted bedroom with floor to ceiling windows and intricate decorative cornicing, and upstairs into the main house, away from the beeping machines and flickering monitors of the manor's undercroft.

The coppery smell of blood invaded their nostrils before Kakashi had even pushed open the heavy oak doors. In the centre of the room a young women dressed in a nurses uniform laid doll-like and broken on the floor. The light beginning to filter into the room reflected brightly off the highly polished floor and the dark puddle spreading slowly around the woman's body.

"Shit," Genma growled.

Kakashi strode forward and used the blunt end of a kunai to push up the girl's too-short skirt.

"She's one of Kuma's guinea pigs," he said, nodding towards the brown, swirling orchid tattoo sitting high on her hip. "Her spinal column has been severed. The entry wound is amateur and desperate. And see these tears in the skin? Probably done with a serrated edge, an improvised weapon…a steak knife perhaps?"

"So, a non-shinobi attacker."

"Nakamizu. I'm guessing that he didn't feel like taking his meds," Kakashi quipped with a dry chuckle.

"…that's not funny."

"No. It's not. He probably heard all the commotion and tried to leave…I am assuming that the nurse here didn't agree with him and he took her out. She didn't even see it coming"

"So where is he now?"

"Hmm, foreign ninja invade your home and have evidence that could get you locked up as a traitor for the next couple of decades and then executed…and I'm guessing even Taki would be a little horrified to find out the depths of Nakamizu's involvement in crimes against humanity. What would you do in his position?"

"Well, I'd leave the country…but I'm guessing he's going to try and head back into central Taki and spin the blame on us…"

Kakashi only nodded grimly. "Yes, the terrible tale of a political figure that was tortured, brutalised, and forced to cooperate with rogue forces from Konoha."

"They'll never buy it."

"Willing to bet? Nakamizu is a highly valued member of the community, providing the country and its neighbours with entertainment and tourism, in other words money, an economy Taki's small shinobi force cannot provide. We aren't even supposed to be here. This mission was never approved officially with the Taki council. The only missive Tsunade sent was a request for access to the city for educational purposes. We are trespassing, and what's worse is that Kuma, one of our own, has been experimenting on Taki's civilians."

"This could be internationally disastrous. We need to find him now!"

Before the words were out of Genma's mouth Kakashi had already dragged a bloody thumb across his summoning scroll. The room erupted with the sound of baying dogs. Sitting atop the formidably large head of Bull, Kakashi's largest nin-dog Pakkun blinked sleepily at Kakashi and Genma before further wrinkling up his face and wheezing like an accordion at the sight and stench of dead girl lying on the floor.

"Isn't it a bit early for that Boss?" he chuffed with disdain.

Kakashi plucked up a scrap of bloodied bandage from a settee and held it out for his pack to sniff at before striding over to one of the large plate glass windows and throwing it wide open.

"The first dog to find and incapacitate the target before he gets into the city will get a month's worth of homemade doggy biscuits. It shouldn't be too hard; he's an unhealthy civilian with questionable hygiene who will be slowed down further by injury."

Eight pairs of eyes stared back with glassy anticipation before chaos erupted.

"Yes Boss!" Pakkun yelped over the enthusiastic chorus of barks and yaps, and, as one, the eight dogs turned and sprinted to the window before leaping out.

Genma quirked an intrigued eyebrow at Kakashi. "Homemade doggy biscuits?"

"I like cooking…everyone has a hobby," he replied concisely before jumping after his pack.

The blades screamed as they collided, a reedy wail that increased in pitch as one fine edge of steel travelled the length of the other. With a quick semi circular motion Sai readjusted his grip and knocked the strike aside, stepping neatly back into a defensive form. He was holding his own. Barely. The strike he had inflicted on Kuma earlier in the courtyard had done nothing to slow or hinder the man.

"How many agents do you have inside Konoha?"

"Four," Kuma answered helpfully.

To make matters worse, Kuma was an impressive swordsman, agile and experienced. In all honestly Sai knew it was experience that he couldn't hope to match, even without Kuma's ability to teleport away with no warning. Every lunge he made was blocked, every thrust he felt sure would hit was met with thin air as Kuma vanished, only to reappear a split second later. Sai ran through the situation with analytical coolness as he tried to stay one step ahead of his opponent, pushing the gut clenching adrenaline down until he was swathed in a blanket of calm detachment.

"When will they attack?"

"It really depends."

"On what?"

The blade swung towards him again, flashing white as it arched forward.

He spun neatly to the side, knocking the weapon back and spinning to thrust into the defenceless opening the parry had left. But Kuma was gone, his voice floating disembodied through the air.

"You're not concentrating Sumiiro."

There was an odd jarring at Sai's side and then the strange tugging sensation of the blade being recovered. There was no pain, not yet, but the spreading wetness against his uniform let him know he'd been hit. He barely saw the heel of Kuma's foot come around before it collided solidly with his jaw, exploding lights across his vision and throwing him clean over the piano.

"You're leading with your left too much and leaving yourself wide open," Kuma lectured.

"Thank you for the pointer senpai," the gurgling rattle of Sai's next inhalation sounded disturbingly weak as he pulled himself awkwardly up onto a crouch behind the large instrument. He needed to exploit every advantage he had over his opponent and quickly because with these wounds…

"You have a punctured lung. You will only be able to continue fighting at maximum capacity for another eight minutes before you breathing becomes too laboured. The blood loss will start to affect you within fifteen."

Sai stood slowly, one hand cradling the open wound at his side. "Eight minutes?" he repeated with a smile. He took a deep steadying breath, ignoring the sudden flare of scorching heat in his side, and then vaulted over the piano to meet Kuma with a long downward sweep. Again the blades howled as they met. Sai's edge was scant centimetres from Kuma's masked face when he twisted his wrist to deflect, gripping Sai's arm with bruising force and driving his own tanto up beneath Sai's ribs.

The blade cut through flesh and muscle, burrowing in right up to the hilt.

Sai's short, high gasp sounded out loudly in the hollow expanse of the room, his mouth opening wide in a silent cry as the sharp edge curved up through his body.

His eyes rolled fully back into his head and his body fell limp in Kuma's grasp.

"Weak," Kuma sighed while twisting the blade.

"Really?" Sai's laboured voice asked as he emerged from behind the piano.

Kuma's gaze shifted disbelievingly between the student walking towards him and the grinning body hanging in his hands…

…Which promptly exploded into thick black ink, splattering across Kuma's mask and torso.

Hissing in shock, Kuma leapt backwards, dragging his sleeve across his mask's eye slits to try and clear them of ink.

"A Clone."

"Yes. A friend of mine taught me some inventive uses for them."

Sai bought his foot down hard against the floor, and Kuma instinctively spun toward the sound, bring his tanto up reflexively in front of his obscured vision. The first of Sai's shuriken went wide but the second hit the mark, imbedding itself deep into Kuma's thigh. Kuma stumbled slightly against the impact, but in the next second disappeared.

"You'll have to do better than genin-level distraction techniques," Kuma taunted silkily by Sai's ear, thrusting his fingers deep into the weeping wound at his side.

The scream that came from Sai's mouth sounded alien to his own ears. Kuma's fingers curved cruelly upward and around his bruised rib and tugged viciously. The blood pumped warm and fast onto the floor as Sai sagged brokenly to his knees, pain lancing with electric intensity through his chest.

"Pain," whispered Kuma, digging his blood soaked digits in deeper.

"…Fear," he continued, finally releasing his grip and kicking his victim brutally to the ground.

"…Weakness."

Sai caught the kick aimed for his ribs with a shaking gloved hand, sweeping his legs in an attempt to knock his opponent to the floor. Kuma vanished, flickering back into existence to stamp hard on the outstretched limb. The bone broke with an echoing snap, eliciting another gargled scream from Sai.

"You can't best me until you let go of these things," Kuma's voice sang eerily in the ballroom as he flickered in and out of existence in quick secession, darting around Sai's prone form with dizzying speed.

Chocking down on the agonised screams clawing at his throat, Sai tightened his grip on his tanto, which shook with the tremors wracking his body.

"Friends…" Kuma's voice seemed to come from all around him, shifting and implacable.

Sai calmed his breathing and lapsed with practiced ease into deep meditative concentration.

"Feelings."

He could feel the air shifting now, chakra shifting and distorting.

"Unnecessary things…"

Kuma was moving faster, the energy circling and twisting all around him, but Sai's focus was needle sharp.

"Things that blind you. Things that…"

The sentence hung in the air unfinished. The tanto left Sai's grip like a whisper, barely announcing its presence as it spun to hit its mark dead centre. The short, flat-tipped blade sung out its impact as it was buried deep into Kuma's throat. He crumpled quickly to the hard floor.

Sighing in tired relief Sai dragged himself slowly to where Kuma lay gasping, a steady stream of blood weeping from under the ink splattered mask. Pulling himself up into a sitting position alongside his former senpai, Sai rested his chin on one knee and stared down at the body next to him. Kuma was still breathing, but it was a strained bubbling sound, which was growing shallower by the second.

"I don't think I'm blind anymore, I think that I am finally seeing things in colour…" Sai started softly, clutching his side as the veil of adrenaline dispersed too quickly, leaving only waves of nauseating pain. "Some of what I've seen is vulgar and ugly, but it's also rich… full of life and personality and I'm starting to understand it…to feel it. I feel mortal now and that makes me weak…but it also makes me strong." Sai snorted a little at that, a tight ironic grunt that sounded bizarre even to him. "Maybe I really did hit my head too hard earlier." Then after a short pause he continued. "This life is confusing and contradictory, but I like it," he hummed happily.

"H-h-how?" Kuma's ragged voice grated through the mask.

"The ink on your mask and chest was imbued with my chakra, which meant I could track you even while you moved through space. It took me a while to adjust to your speed, but to be honest, this fight was over the second you detonated my clone. You see, I would have never thought of that while under Roots complete influence. The idea of letting you land potentially fatal blows in order to set up that scenario and then wait for an opportunity to put my plan into practice would have been senseless to me. Two years ago I would have fought you cleanly and professionally, and then I would have died."

"…Sumiiro…"

A warm and all encompassing exhaustion seemed to wash over Sai, his eyelids feeling suddenly impossibly heavy.

"Are you really never scared senpai…never? Even when dying?"

But Kuma didn't respond, the staggered rise and fall of his chest had stilled completely.

"It's fine senpai…I'm sometimes scared too," Sai whispered, blinking against the gathering wetness around his eyes. Shifting his forehead onto his knee he finally allowed them to close.

The forest surrounding the Nakamizu estate was dense and unkempt; it kept his lands secluded from the hustle and bustle of Taki, acting like a fortified wall to keep intruders and prying eyes out. The canopy was high, comprised of ancient evergreens, gnarled oaks, and spiky spruces with trunks as wide as three men. The trees allowed only sporadic puddles of the morning sunlight to filter down into the thick foliage, casting the forest floor in a patchwork of black shadow and golden dapple. The only maintained road out of his lands just happened to be through the courtyard and out of the main gates…and he was not planning to walk brazenly through the wide-open space in front of a whole shooting gallery of enemy nin.

For the thousandth time he found himself spitting Kuma's name through the tight bandages around his face as his foot caught an exposed root, throwing him forward into a crumbly, damp wall of moss and bark. Hiroto leaned heavily against the rotten trunk, panting hard and pulling at the bandages to loosen them, sucking a greedy breath into his straining lungs. The air under the canopy was musty with the earthy scent of damp soil and decaying vegetation, and already the bottoms of his velvet robes were soaked through with dew and peat, making them heavy and cold. That stupid Konoha bastard just had to involve him in this ridiculous pet project, and now his home was being attacked, his staff killed and his reputation and life had been thrown into serious jeopardy. He just hoped to hell that by the time he got to Taki they'd all have killed each other and there would be no witnesses to contradict his story. And if there were, well, he'd have to come up with something quick…

If there was one thing Nakamizu Hiroto was brilliant at it was spinning a tale, a gift honed in even the most amateur politician.

His face was starting to throb again, bringing with it what promised to be one almighty tension headache. Shadows were pulsing and shifting around his periphery making him jump at things that weren't there. Hiroto rubbed his bandaged temples soothingly, cursing as he pushed himself off the tree and deeper into the undergrowth, swatting away the swarms of mosquitoes hovering around his face and hacking away at the waist high ferns with the bone-saw he'd taken from the infirmary.

The crisp snap of a twig breaking somewhere behind him had Hiroto wheeling around in fright and clutching the improvised weapon to his chest…but the forest was silent again other than the low droning of insects. Shaking his head in annoyance, Hiroto resumed his slow pace through the forest.

"Jumping at shadows," he murmured, chuckling throatily.

Until one of the shadows moved.

In a flurry of fur and legs Pakkun pounced, clamping his teeth down hard around Hiroto's meaty thigh. The man let out an anguished scream; bringing the bone-saw down in a clumsy arch towards the snarling little dog. A larger mouth instantly seized his wrist, and the hundred-kilo weight of Bull slammed Hiroto to the ground. And suddenly there were teeth everywhere, slobbering mouths of different sizes securing Hiroto's thrashing mammoth-frame to the soft, wet earth. The man was screaming in terror, his cries escalating in pitch until even the dogs were whining around their mouthfuls.

"So who won?" Kakashi's shouted above the din and instantly Hiroto's cries died in his throat as ice cold dread flooded his system.

Oh gods, not him…

Pakkun, releasing his mouthful of thigh, trotted happily up the curved incline of Hiroto's stomach to sit proudly on his victim's chest.

"Group effort, Boss. You're always preaching the benefits of teamwork, yeah?"

Kakashi smiled grimly underneath his mask, fixing Hiroto with his coldest stare.

"I suppose that's a months worth of dog biscuits for all of you. I guess I'll be stuck in the kitchen for a week after this is over…"

"That I'll pay to see," Genma snorted from beside him.

"So…Hiroto. Tell us everything we want to know…and just so we're clear, we will kill you anyway."

Sakura smiled in relief as she watched Kakashi step through the trees, flanked by his eight nin-hounds, and onto the grassy hill overlooking the Nakamizu estate. Dropping her hands from Sai's outstretched leg and patting his shoulder reassuringly she stood and smoothed down her skirt, a fine pink eyebrow raised at the man slouching his way toward her.

"What took you so long?" she asked, trying to hide the smirk pulling at her cheeks.

"Maa, I got drawn into a lengthy and philosophical discussion about the various flavours and ingredients needed to make the perfect dog biscuit."

The giant black Mastiff, Bull, if Sakura remembered correctly, chuffed something that sounded a suspiciously like 'cat.'

"Where's Genma?"

"Arranging the fireworks. Where's…" Kakashi looked around and scratched his head in a puzzled manner, "…everyone."

"Well, Yamato-sensei, six Narutos, and the ANBU Owl are cleaning up, and Sai is…err…" Sakura gestured vaguely at their dark-haired teammate who was lying prostrate on the ground with an enormous goofy smile spread across his pale features. "Let's just say he's floating around on a pink fluffy cloud at the moment. That Kuma guy really did a number on him."

"Kuma…" Kakashi muttered darkly, walking to meet her.

"Sai won, clearly, but not without a broken leg, three ribs, a punctured lung and some quite impressive blood loss. I've reset the leg as best I can and repaired his ribs and lung, but it'll be a little while before he's lucid again. I had to give him something for the pain. He was delirious, actually crying if you can believe that, poor thing. How are you feeling?"

"A little stiff and sore but fine."

"That's good," Sakura said stretching on tip toes to pull her fingers through Kakashi's dirty mop of hair. "Ha, looks like you've got half the forest stuck in here," she giggled, trying to dislodge a particularly stubborn twig. Kakashi's eyes slid closed in appreciation as her slender fingers worked against his scalp. His quiet hum of contentment didn't go unnoticed. He felt her small hands pause briefly before they retreated completely.

"See?" she asked, quickly holding up the offending foliage as evidence and biting down on the corner of her lower lip. His eye was drawn to that little action, his gaze fixed with intensity on that small glint of straight white teeth against full cherry lips, perfect lips, lips that would taste like the cinnamon lip gloss she kept squirreled away in her weapons pouch. Would they feel as soft as they looked? Slowly moving against his own, parting enough for his tongue to sweep…

Her self-conscious cough bought his attention back to her face, which was burning an interesting shade of beetroot. His eye curved up into a happy crescent and Sakura stared resolutely at the ground, her eyes almost bulging out the sockets.

Awkward…

He was staring at my mouth. Staring. At. My. Mouth.

Kakashi, busy suffering through his own traumatised yet much more self-derogatory inner monologue, had never been happier to hear…

"Hey! Baka-sensei!" Naruto shouted, throwing both arms up into the air as if his bright orange visage might not actually be visible from space. Behind him the rest of their group followed at a more sedate pace, looking battle worn and exhausted.

Sakura waved them over a little too enthusiastically.

"Everything's taken care of senpai," Tenzou said, leaning heavily on Genma for support. His deep-set almond shaped eyes looking positively ghoulish from exhaustion.

"Good. Is everything in place Genma?"

"Yep," Genma answered, pulling a half salute.

They looked down at the estate, marvelling at how grand and untainted it looked in the warm morning light. At the main gates they could see a group of men walking, each carrying a small, emaciated figure bridal style. Kenta looked up at them with a thankful smile, hitching his fragile load into a more secure position. His daughter's breath was shallow and weak, fanning gently against his collarbone. She was alive at least. The other men in his group looked on wearily before disappearing into the forest. With a last nod Kenta followed after them.

"Well Genma," Kakashi announced, "do the honours."

"With pleasure." Genma grinned crookedly, bringing his hands up in a single seal, "Release."

One moment the manor was there, magnificent and imposing, and the next it simply wasn't. The explosion split the air around them like a lighting strike, shaking the ground and sucking the moisture from the atmosphere. The enormous fireball rose high into the sky, curling and tumbling until only thick choking smoke remained, an expanding plume of black spreading upward.

"No evidence, no bodies, just the burnt shell of a former luxury mansion," Genma declared proudly.

"That noise will have travelled over twenty miles. We should get out of here before every ninja in the country descends on us," Tenzou warned.

"Yeah, you're right. Lets get out of here, the sooner we get back to Konoha the better. I just hope we aren't too late," Kakashi said, turning to lead the way home and casting a last thoughtful gaze over his shoulder. "Naruto, you can carry Sai."

"WHAT!"

AN:

* Tabula Rasa - anything existing undisturbed in its original pure state

Sumiiro - incase you are interested, is a type of japanese black calligraphy ink.. or at least it should be if my dictionary works...