A/N: More awesome Kiba/Ino action. The thrill of the chase is on. Will our heroes yada yada yada.
Chapter Two: Contact
Several hours later, she realized that Kiba's back was much, much closer and not moving, and before she could put on the brakes, she slammed nose-first into the middle of his shoulders.
"Oof!" she grunted and drew away to rub her sore nose. "What the-?"
"Shut up, cupcake." Kiba put his large hand over her mouth, muffling her complaints and obscenities. "They're up ahead," he said. He turned to the side to glance at her. He dropped his hand. "They're not moving. What's yer call?"
"Suppress your chakra…Karin's a sensor." Ino clapped together her hands to initiate the jutsu. Her chakra diminished. Kiba did the same. She continued, "We can get the drop on them if we continue on foot. Are they close?"
"About a klick, maybe a little more. They probably stopped to rest." He squinted upwards to the leafy bowers of the trees above them; she followed his gaze, but she did not see the sky through the covering canopy. "It's gettin' light. Dawn's nearly here."
She did not question him. Ino knew enough about Kiba to know that he seemed to have an animal's intelligence…instinct would be a more accurate word. He could always notch his chin and nose into the air, and on a bright, sunny day with no clouds, state that it was going to rain later in the afternoon. And every time, he'd be right. "If we want the advantage of shadows, we should hurry. Are you able to track them?"
Kiba shook his head. "I'm not able to do it over distances without it, but Akamaru can track and relay the information to us."
"Good. Turn on your comm." She fingered the button on the side of her throat. "Let's find a vantage point and decide what we should do about capturing Karin once we see where they've stopped."
He agreed, and after switching on his comm unit, they pressed forward into the dense growth of forest, traveling along the side of the narrow canal. The smell of dank waterbed and wet vegetation was pungent even to Ino, and she watched her footing carefully as the ground was soggy and slippery with mud. Akamaru trooped on, his nose to the ground and air alternately, and Kiba would indicate with hand signals if she needed to slow up or stop to wait. At one point, Kiba held up his fist- -Stop!- -and she saw him put his nose into the air.
"Do you smell that?" he asked. "Smoke. That direction." He gestured to the side.
Ino glanced where he indicated and noticed the ground elevated up further to a rock-formation that jutted out of the forest, breaking the canopy of the trees. She pointed. "Let's get up there and see if we can spot them."
"Roger," he told her. "Akamaru?"
Akamaru went forward on point again, and together, she and Kiba followed. The climb was difficult mainly because there were places that the 'hill' suddenly became sheer, and their footholds were shaky with silt constantly shifting under them. As they climbed, Ino slipped, losing her grip, and she winced in anticipation of falling. When she didn't, only felt a firm, warm grip envelop her wrist, Ino peeked through her eyelashes to discover Kiba had caught her. He curtailed her rising gratitude with a smirk and a sexist quip that earned him an icy glare from her instead.
Soon after, they crested the hill. Bluish smoke curled up from the green forest to the north of their position. The extra pack had come with binoculars, so Ino pulled them out and focused them to the distance. She found their fugitive with Hozuki Suigetsu…and it looked like…Karin wasn't…wearing any clothes?
"Is she naked?" Kiba said. Ino looked over at him and saw that he squinted and shaded his eyes with the blade of his hand. "She's a goddamn fugitive and she's naked? She retarded or something?"
He could apparently see long distances, but Ino scanned the area for strategic advantage points. "Hmm. She must've wanted to dry off and made him stop so she could. We can use this. If we move in now, they'll be off their guard and we'll be able to neutralize Suigetsu and capture Karin."
"Me'n'Akamaru can take care of Suigetsu," Kiba said. "You deal with Miz Nudity down there. Hey," he suddenly said, and Ino felt the leer that crawled across his face, "does 'er carpet match the curtains?"
"You're an ass, Inuzuka. She's wearing underwear. And I don't think you ought to take on Suigetsu head-to-head. He's a pretty mean fighter," she said. "According to his dossier- -get your hands off!"
He'd tugged her ponytail, not hard, but enough that it rubbed raw. Kiba snorted, his feral eyes unusually bright. "Ye of little faith. You let the men handle the men and you can get into a slap-fight with Sweet-tits and try to lose yer clothes while yer at it, hunh?"
"Inuzuka! I will kill you if you're-"
"Try to keep up," he interrupted and he hopped into a slide down the nearly-sheer face of the hill. Akamaru woofed and jumped down after him.
That jerk. Ino ground her teeth together. She secured the binoculars in her pack before sliding along the loose rock and silt. The three of them sent a miniature avalanche of dirt and rock cascading to the solid ground of the forest, and she had to flat-out run to keep pace with Kiba and his mutt. They were so going to get killed, she thought, if they didn't slow down and think out their strategy a bit. Suigetsu could turn to liquid at will, and he had the capacity to transform others into water as well. If Kiba wasn't careful, he and Akamaru could dive into a trap that they wouldn't be able to survive.
She watched Kiba weave through tree trunks up ahead, nearly out of sight as he blended well with the branches and undergrowth, so she touched the button to her comm. "Kiba. I"ll circle around. You distract Suigetsu while I subdue Karin. I'll signal you to disengage and will rendezvous back at our vantage point."
"Roger that." Then his back disappeared. Akamaru was no longer visible either.
Ino continued, but slowed to a careful creep forward so as not to give away her position. All this required considerable skill since her chakra was suppressed. She'd released it once she was near enough to Karin that she'd be unable to avoid the Mind-Body Switch. Once she was inside Karin's head, she'd force Karin to put on the special chakra-suppression manacles in the pack. After that, Ino would switch back and take Karin to the rendezvous.
Between the trees, she saw the clearing, Karin's bright red hair an obvious blot of color against the green tapestry of forest. Ino watched her footing, moved when a breeze rustled the leaves and grass, and kept well camouflaged by keeping low to the ground. Insects hummed around her ears as she settled in and waited for Kiba's distraction. Sweat beaded along her upper lip, dripped down her back to collect in the waistband of her skirt. Heat and humidity were rising with the advent of day.
"I'm in position," she radioed to Kiba. She kept her voice barely audible, but knew Kiba's hearing picked it up. "I'm performing Mind-Body Switch when we sign off."
"Copy that. We're in position too. Ready on yer go."
Ino signed off, formed the signs, and charged her chakra into the technique. Her vision clouded, darkened, as her spirit soared like an arrow into nothingness. Time, when she was astral, meant nothing. Her clan's technique took a matter of three seconds to complete, but during that three seconds, a lifetime's river flowed over and around her, submersing her in the complexity of the universe. There was no breathing here, no heartbeat, and when she heard the pulse of a heart and the swell of air in her chest, Ino knew she met her mark.
Vision was the last to clarify, and she opened her eyes to see Suigetsu sitting across from her picking his teeth with a bone of some type. Large violet eyes glanced in her direction.
He sneered. "Take a picture. It'll last longer."
When Suigetsu's attention turned, for just that miniscule of a moment, Kiba and Akamaru drove an attack into the quiet camp, twin spinning drills that were deadly and fast. Ino, inside Karin's body, dove to the side, softening her fall with her forearms and rolling out of battle range. Heart pounding, she gained her feet and crashed through the undergrowth, thorns and branches whipping her bare thighs with stinging accuracy. There was a crash and rush of water behind her, the howling of churning air, and some woman's intuition told Ino that her time inside Karin's body was short.
Quickly, she knelt and formed a combination of successive signs for a technique to reach into Karin's mind. As though a large closet had been opened full of many colorful clothes, Karin's mind opened up a closet full of memories, shimmering mirrors reflecting events of still-life in reverse chronological order, starting most recently with her escape from the prison.
Ino selected one that seemed a few weeks old, one of Dad in an interrogation room, and entered the memory. She felt as though she did not have time to play the entire memory, so she used another technique to tug the memory into her own mind to replay at her leisure. She selected this one because if Karin was telling the truth or lying, the time in the interrogation room would exemplify her knowledge…or ignorance.
From behind her, there came an awful yelping, as though an animal in pain. Ino could not differentiate if it was actually animal…or if it was human. Either way, she realized, Kiba and Akamaru were in trouble. She decided to return to the camp wearing Karin's body, as Suigetsu probably would not attack her flat-out, and she could gather as much information as she could about their destination. But even before she turned around, a cold hand clamped on her arm and spun her.
Those large violet eyes greeted her. "We gotta move our asses," Suigetsu said. "Stop pissing around and put your clothes on."
She noticed a very large sword hefted over his shoulder and to her horror, she recognized blood splattered on the broad blade of it. "What…happened?"
"Don't be a stupid bitch. We were attacked."
His attitude bugged her, but she suppressed her irritation as his clammy hand clamped around her upper-arm and guided her back towards the camp. "Yeah, I know. Where're we going next?"
"You really are stupid," he said, pushing her forward. "I've told you already where we're headed. And I'm fine, thanks for asking. Say, did I tell you about that one time Sasuke watched over you while you were sleeping?"
Oh, shit, thought Ino, as her brain processed the fact that his comment was a test. Ino hadn't had time to officially scan through Karin's brain to further understand her personality, but before Ino even had a chance to answer, a fist like a sledgehammer nailed the back of her head. Stars and darkness overwhelmed her. She didn't even feel herself release the technique.
When, at last, she awoke, it was with a throbbing headache. Ino blinked back tears from the brightness of the sun. The headache dissipated under a concentrated dose of chakra to alleviate the pain. Quietly, she pulled herself to standing and attempted to radio Kiba. Nothing but static on his end. Moving stealthily, she began closing in on his last known location, continuing to try their radio frequency.
Where the hell were they? Panic closed in on her, tightening her throat, when she found a furrow in the rich green of the earth. She followed it. Speckles of red dotted plants and foliage along the furrow, and after a minute or two, she came to the end of it. Kiba and Akamaru were crumpled in a heap at the base of a very large, very solid tree.
A/N: As always, let me know thoughts & concerns. Love to hear from you all as I know you're enjoying. =)