Ami didn't scream. In the dark, the staring eyes were only visible in the faint yellow lantern light filtering through the mosquito mat hanging in the open window. With Ami laying in the shadows of the floor, it was possible those eyes hadn't even seen her wake. She slitted her eyes, shifting as if she were still sleep, and used the motion to slip her hand beneath the edge of the futon and grasped the senbon hidden there.
The thought occurred to her that the eyes might belong to Suzaku or one of the chunin, making a particularly creepy entrance after returning from the chicho's party. She lay still until her eyes were no longer blurred from sleep, several seconds during which the sinister eyes roamed to the other futon. When Ami could finally see the faint outline of a tall, slim man wearing thin clothes in contrast to the bulky flak-jackets of the shinobi, she knew there was a stranger in the room.
Ami took a deep breath and leapt up unto a crouch, tearing the window-mat down, brandishing a fistful of senbon as pale yellow light streamed in from the lantern hanging outside. The light revealed a tall, bald man, with a kind, round face, wearing a dark red robe with a maroon sash. In one arm he carried a bundle of small urns, and there were lengths of paper hanging from his sash as it wound diagonally down his body, each covered in thin calligraphy. The general appearance was that of a monk, and Ami relaxed slightly.
"I thought the other would be here," the man said in a soft, high pitched voice. Ami thought he sounded almost guilty.
"Who are you?" Ami challenged, her fist clenching around her senbon.
"There are those who foolishly call me Koka," he said as he placed one of the urns on the ground, between Ami and the door. "But we're sadly late for introductions,"
"Koka? You're the dummy!" Ami said, realisation dawning. The man's name, and his voice she realised, had been those of the straw dummy two days earlier.
"Oh? I hope I'm not a dummy," Koka said.
"You're the one who killed Captain." Ami scowled and almost threw her projectiles at him there and then, but hesitated, stayed by a combination of doubt, and never having tried to kill anyone before.
"And you came anyway! I didn't want to hurt anyone, but what I'm doing here, it's important. It's monumental!" Koka started to become animated, clenching his free hand. "A world without suffering. An escape from this unsatisfactory existence. I can give people this, but not- not if it's disrupted. And for what? For the sake of simple greed, the most pernicious trap of this inexcusable world."
"I-it's just a trade. It'll... it'll bring life in," Ami muttered, remembering the words overheard from the secretary earlier that day, as she inched towards the window.
"It will distract my people from their blissful state. Have you known suffering, little one? Ah, no. I can see that you haven't yet seen the true horror of this world, whose time passes like needles on the skin. I can see there is still light in your eyes."
"Uh, thanks, creepy-san," Ami said, casting her eyes around the clothes scattered around her bed for her equipment pouch. She spotted it, lying on top of her sweat-stained grey pants.
"You would have learned. You would have learned the inadequacy of this world, had you lived long enough. I am truly sorry, but there are so many depending on me." Koka bent down and placed another of the urns on the ground, beside the first. "Though- all of this for a young girl seems decadent. It may comfort you to know your death will be unduly expensive."
Ami's heart's started to beat faster, and she began plotting a route to the window. With the threat evident, if ambiguous, she no longer felt the need to hold back. Ami flicked her hand towards the Koka, and the senbon flew straight at his face. Two thudded into the half-closed door behind him, but she saw the third protruding from the man's palm, swept up at the last moment to block the senbon inches from his eye.
"Pain is found on the road to dissatisfaction, a path I no longer walk," the man said, idly pulling the senbon from his hand and dropping to the floor. Moving without warning, he raised a foot and smashed it down on the first urn.
In place of the urn, a humanoid figure faded into view. Pale, with long brown hair, and bright red lips. The figure looked essentially human, a little shorter than an adult, and was wearing ragged clothes which wouldn't have looked out of place on the local people. Despite it's superficial similarity to a person, it clearly wasn't human. The creature's grin was feral, insane, and a long red tongue rolled out of the crimson mouth to slap wetly against its chin.
Ami tumbled towards the window in a perfectly executed cartwheel, grabbed her equipment pouch as a her movement brought her hands to the ground, and landed crouching at the foot of the window. As she moved, the man behind her whipped the second urn up in a kick, and sent it flying at the wooden window frame, where it smashed into dozens of clay fragments. Ami shielded her eyes, and when she lowered her arm, saw that another of the figures was crouching in the window.
"I'm sorry child, there is no escape. Now, as at all times, the path of least suffering is blissful surrender."
Ami launched her fist at the figure crouching in the windowsill. After the attack of the intangible creature on the road, she was surprised when her punch met the solid skin of its face. It gulped in surprise, as if swallowing a hiccup, and Ami followed the strike up with a sharp jab to its neck.
One of the creature's yellow-clawed hands went to its throat, and the other swept at Ami, digging deep scratches across the skin above her shoulder blade. Ignoring the pain, Ami leapt up to grip the top of the window frame and slammed her feet into the creature's chest. Her swinging kick knocked it clear out of the window to fall to the ground below. Ami heard the sound of the third urn smashing behind her, spotted a rope bridge several feet from the window, and leapt for it.
She paused on the rope bridge to strap on her belt pouch, and another of the grinning figures appeared at the window. Thirty feet below, the creature she'd knocked from the window scrabbled to its feet on the board-walk, and began climbing one of the trees the inn used for support, it's yellow claws giving it purchase on the tough wood.
Ami tossed a kunai at the creature in the window, but the blade went wide, passing by it harmlessly and sinking into the room's far wall instead.
With a grunt of frustration she turned from the creature and sprinted up the rope bridge, towards a small platform twenty feet above her. Ami briefly hoped that the the creature wouldn't be able to make the jump from the window to the bridge, but she turned back in time to see it land on the rope bridge with the grace of a cat, and came scuttling after her.
At the top of the rope bridge, the wooden platform opened out, forming a small landing. Four wooden houses opened onto it, suspended from a thicket of tall trees, and Ami saw the high ground as a chance to ambush one of her pursuers. She drew a kunai, and crouched to wait for what she knew would only be a matter of seconds.
The pale head of the creature appeared above the floor of the landing. Ami jumped forwards and slammed a kunai into its temple before it could react to her presence. Not waiting to see the result of her attack, Ami pulled the kunai free and turned, darting to the back of the landing. There were no more bridges leading away from the platform, so Ami leapt for one of the hanging vines. The vine dropped sickeningly for several feet, coming untangled from a branch above before stabilising, and Ami scrambled upwards.
The only solid ground accessible from the vine turned out to be a wooden platform adjoining an old house, suspended between a trio of trees. The building was half ruined and obviously abandoned, the rope bridge which once connected it to the rest of the town long severed and dangling uselessly from the small platform. Ami cut the vine with the kunai, letting herself fall to the platform, and looked down to check the progress of her pursuers.
The creature she'd kicked to the town's ground level was making up for her head start, and was already climbing up the rope bridge behind the inn. The one she'd nailed with the kunai was lying motionlessly on the first platform, and the third she'd so far only heard was slowly picking its way up one of her platform's support trees.
Ami drew a bundled handful of senbon from her pouch and began flicking them at the closest creature. The creature was fully exposed to attack as it climbed the tree below her, and Ami managed to nail it in the shoulder, which seemed to seriously inconvenience its ability to climb. With a stationary target, she began to pincushion the creature with more of the needles, in the abdomen, the shoulders, and the spine. A senbon which sank into the soft spot on the back of its head seemed to be the final strike, and it fell limply to the ground below, exuding a faint red mist as it sank into the swamp below.
The final creature had continued climbing while Ami had been focused on its companion, and was almost at the platform. Ami drew a kunai which once again bore its paper 'victory' tag, and took a fighting stance. The creature scrabbled up over the edge, spider-like, and leapt at Ami.
Ami dodged the leap, and the two traded blows for several seconds. The creature was slower than her, Ami realised as the fight went on, but its erratic movements and long, lunging arms made it hard for her to land a telling blow. Her arms were starting to ache with blocking its strikes when she saw her opening, and swung the kunai in a wide arc across the creature's neck.
The monster's hands clutched at its throat, spurting hot red fluid onto Ami's face and hair. A drop landed on her lip, and she tasted searing sweetness. Ami crouched, spitting and retching as the creature fell limply to the ground. Not blood, the creature had bled a spicy, sweet fluid, which began quickly evaporating into thin red mist, the stains on Ami's skin and hair dissipating into the air even as she wiped at them.
Moments after she recovered from her nausea, she saw a man calmly walking up the side of the same tree that the creature had scaled. In the dim light far above the lanterns, Ami recognised the old man from her room.
"They make effective killing machines in Konoha," the man said as he stepped off onto the platform. "Tonight was such a failure. And now you force me to risk everything in a low duel."
"Why are you doing this!" Ami said between laboured breaths. "Those are monsters! Do you- do you make them or what?"
"I don't need to make monsters, the world is full enough of them already," Koka said sadly. "Outside this place, my peaceful refuge, they rule the land. You have been made a monster yourself, though you can not see it." He spun around as he finished speaking, delivering a swirling kick that caught Ami in the head before she'd even registered it. The strike sent her flying backwards into the wall of the ruined house.
Ami crashed into the wall, denting planks as she hit, and slipped to a crouch, half leaning against the wall. She was dazed, but she remembered her academy lessons, and pulsed her chakra, pumping fresh strength into her body, suppressing the pain. She staggered to her feet.
"Lay down your burdens, little one. The life ahead of you is full of pain and regret. This world will never allow satisfaction. Only the blissful release of surrender will allow you any peace."
"O-okay. I surrender," Ami said, weakly.
Koka looked at her intently for a moment. "No, there is a lie in your eyes."
Koka moved in another lightning-fast kick, but Ami had been expecting it. She brought up a kunai to block a strike to her head, and watched as the man's rising kick impaled the top of his foot on the tip of her blade. Koka repositioned and used the same foot to send a light kick towards her neck, which Ami blocked as well. She brought her kunai down to try and hamstring the leg, but Koka pulled it out of her reach as quickly as he'd struck.
Koka sighed and moved in to attack in earnest. Ami found herself defending against a ceaseless barrage of jabs, kicks and palm strikes, and was managing to block less than a third of them. Her victory kunai was spent spinning from her hands, and a back-handed strike sent her dazed to the ground.
Ami saw the monk lift his leg, preparing to bring it down on her head. She reached out and slapped lightly on the ankle supporting his weight. When she pulled her hand away, a paper tag was stuck there, hissing quietly. She took advantage of his momentary confusion to roll away, and jumped blindly from the edge of the platform.
Behind her, Ami heard an explosion. Moments later, a wave of hot air and wooden splinters assaulted her back. Her flight brought her with arm's reach of a tree, and she lashed a hand out, forming chakra on her fingertips to grip the wood. Her momentum carried her around the tree in a gliding spiral, and she scraped around it twice before she could stick her feet to it.
Ami risked a glance back up to the ruined house. The platform she'd been fighting on was mostly destroyed, and there was no sign of Koka, but no sign of his body either. The creature she'd brought down with senbon had disappeared from the board-walk where it'd fallen, and Ami felt a knot in her stomach about returning to the inn. Instead, she ran up the tree until she could jump to a neighbouring building, and began to lose herself in the sprawl of Numa-Ku.
Ami spent a miserable four hours hiding in the branches of a swamp tree. She deemed the room at the inn to be compromised, and didn't dare return there despite her apparent victory at the derelict house. At the same time, she needed to stay nearby and alert, watching for the return of the guard team before they could walk blindly into a potential trap.
She found a place, a hundred meters from the site of her battle, nestled in the branches of one of the tall trees. There were houses on every side of her, but there was a small gap which gave a view of the rope bridge leading to the inn's entrance. Ami could hear the sounds of life coming from inside of the nearby houses, just the ordinary movements of people at home. Creaking floorboards, banging cupboards. No voices could be heard, and not knowing the hour, Ami wondered if most of the village might be in bed. The streets were certainly deserted.
She eventually saw a group of three figures in familiar green flak jackets gather at the bottom of the rope bridge and start to climb it. She needed to be swift.
She jumped from her hiding spot onto the sloping wooden roof of a house below, sprinted across it, and leapt, catching her foot on the wall of another house further down, sending chakra to her feet to stick there. She used the new angle to jump to a nearby tree, which she was able to slide down to the network of ground level pontoons, and sprinted for the inn.
Tsuzumi was just opening the inn's door, giving it a quiet, unnecessary knock when Ami barrelled into them.
"Wait!" she hissed.
"Ami? Ami! What happened?" Tsuzumi said, crouching to examine Ami's face and torn pyjamas. "Were you playing with shuriken?"
"I got attacked, sensei. The doki came after me, and there was a man in charge of them."
Tsuzumi looked alarmed. "Doki? Here? In the room?"
"They were small, like people, but more like monsters." Ami scowled suddenly, and jabbed her sensei in the stomach. "You shouldn't have left me!"
Behind them, Okei and Hayase were swaying. They both had dull looks on their faces, and were staring into space with glassy eyes, as if they were drunk.
"Uh! Ah-ha, sorry, you're right, you're right." He waved dismissively as he clutched at his stomach with the other hand. "Are they still in the room?"
"No, they chased me out and I killed them. Dummy-san chased me too. I blew him up, but he might have escaped."
"Uh, Dummy-san?" Tsuzumi asked, giving the surrounding darkness a quick inspection and rubbing a hand across his knotted forehead.
"The dummy from the road. He was a real guy, he's a monk."
"Okay, get behind me Ami, back me up," Tsuzumi said, drawing a kunai in his left hand and moving to push open the door.
"Sensei, what's with them?" Ami asked, pointing at the two swaying chunin behind them. "Are they drunk or something?"
"Ah-ha, they drank a little. I didn't think it was a good idea, but- They didn't have that much." Tsuzumi stepped back and gave Okei a light slap on the cheek. The man didn't respond. "Maybe they're extra tired."
Tsuzumi moved back to the door, and carefully crept inside. He checked the corners and behind the door, then behind the counter. Satisfied that the inn's main room was secure, he began moving up the stairs, keeping his feet to the edge of the steps where the wood didn't protest.
Ami followed Tsuzumi as they searched the entire inn. Not just the two rooms which the guard team had rented, but he intruded on the traders' rooms as well. They found the traders all peacefully asleep, some even in their day clothes where they'd passed out on their beds. It seemed like the sleepless night in the wilderness had badly affected them as well.
With the inn seemingly secure, Ami and Tsuzumi herded the dazed chunin into the adjacent room, and pushed them onto their futons fully clothed. The men didn't object, both seeming to fall deeply asleep as soon as they were down. Tsuzumi led Ami back into the other room. He inspected the room carefully, paying close attention to the pottery fragments.
"It looks like someone was definitely here. What did he look like?" Tsuzumi asked, sitting on the futon closest the door, as Ami crossed her legs on the other.
"Bald monk," Ami said. "He looked friendly, but he wasn't."
"Is this where I teach you how to give a good description?" Tsuzumi groaned.
"Oh wait." Ami moved her hand through the Dog, Boar, Ram seals. "Henge!"
A cloud of smoke erupted around where Ami had been sitting, and when it cleared, she'd been replaced by a tall, slim man in his late forties. He wore a dark red robe with a maroon sash, which had a series of paper seals hanging from it. The lettering on the paper was more of a blurry mess of abstract scribbles than anything which could be called writing, evidence of Ami's less than perfect memory.
"And he spoke like this," Ami said in a gentle, high pitched voice, then dispelled the technique in a cloud of smoke.
Tsuzumi was scratching his chin. "Coda-san said that a local monk was expected to come to the party, but he didn't turn up. She didn't call him Koka, she said his name was Kotaro. I wonder if it's the same person. He's apparently a big deal in town, he has the trust of the chicho."
"He's a fraud! He tried to kill me," Ami said. "He said he was sorry, but then he made the doki. He even came after me himself."
"Hm, you said. Was he skilled in ninjutsu?" Tsuzumi asked.
"He beat me up pretty well," Ami said, tentatively poking the bruise on her cheek, wincing, then poking it again.
"Hm, skilled in taijutsu. Was he as good as me?"
"Don't be insecure, sensei," Ami grunted, digging in her pouch for the small paper packet of pain pills. She pushed one into her mouth and bit down with a grimace.
"I have to know in case we fight him," Tsuzumi said.
Ami paused to think for half a minute. "He was about as good as Sasuke."
"Is he a genin from the academy?"
"Yeah, but he's a prodigy! He could beat the sensei sometimes."
"Okay, let's say he's low chunin. Combined with his summoning jutsu, we'll probably need to go in force." Tsuzumi said.
"Uh, sensei, where's Nara-san?" Ami asked.
"Ah-ha. He said he wanted to check on something, and later left to escort Coda-chan home."
Ami set her mouth and blinked disapprovingly. "Sensei! Why am I the serious one! This is a mission, and you're getting drunk and getting with girls!"
"Ami! Don't be so quick to judge your sensei! I didn't drink a thing, and I'm clearly not getting with a girl."
"Because Inaho-neesan would kill you," Ami added.
"She would kill me in my sleep. She has told me so," Tsuzumi confirmed.
"But what's wrong with the others?" she asked, looking at the connecting door to the second room.
"Eh, I don't know. Duty chunin don't get out of the village much, they probably think it's a chance to cut loose."
Ami narrowed her eyes. "How did you do with your body language skills, eh?"
"My what?" Tsuzumi asked, seeming confused, before remembering. "Oh! It was very useful. I picked up so much body language, Ami-chan."
"Uhuh. You were cutting loose!"
"Yeah, yeah," he waved her off. "A little. It's fine,"
"I almost died!"
"You're a fine kunoichi, you didn't die," he said, lying down on the futon. "Now it's been thirty-five hours without sleep. I guess you had a nap, neko-chan, so you're on watch. Wake me at dawn."
Ami blushed, looking down at her torn cat pyjamas, and searched through her kit for antiseptic. After treating her shallow scrapes and changing into a fresh set of clothes, Ami didn't have much to do, and spent the time until morning staring tensely through the window, jumping at every creak in the cooling building.