Nenshō stirred the steaming pot of stew trying to make sure he didn't drop any cigarette ash into the pot. Cooking was hardly Nenshō's usual chore when it came to setting up camp. Usually that was Kumo's job he was better at using his herb knowledge to spice up usually meager ingredients and making the meal considerably more heartening. Usually Nenshō handled the fire and tent. Hinata was patrolling the perimeter with her Byakugan. That was one of the routines he had developed with Kumo after escaping prison. Hinata's Byakugan was what he suspected was the reason Tsunade paired him with her having plenty of experience working with its unique capabilities.
Tomi was already fast asleep in the tent bathed in orange light of the setting sun. The old man was certainly slowing them down especially since he insisted they stop to spend the night whenever they could usually making them stop in the middle of the afternoon at the last inn before they lost daylight. The old man was paying for their rooms so it had no real strain on his pocketbook. But he wanted to go home and finally spend more time with Tenten and sleep in his own bed. If he was careful he could maybe go a week without a Guy finding out who he was back and dragging him off to one of his torturous training sessions.
Nenshō smirked to himself. He was actually calling that village home. The last place he had given that title to had been his eight by eight foot sell in the Mist Prison. And he had always been sure to use a cynical undertone when referring to it as such.
A small finger tapped on his shoulder bringing his thoughts back to what he was doing. He turned to see a panting Hinata behind him hands on her knees trying to catch her breath. "Were… were…" she panted.
"Catch your breath." He said dropping the ladle and turning around to face her. She nodded and took a moment to orient herself.
"We're being tracked." She said. "I haven't been able to spot them when we we're staying at the inns but I'm sure I spotted those men last light at the inn and their headed for our position."
Nenshō nodded and picked up his armored hood sliding it over his head and adjusting the strap.
"Any idea who they are?" he asked taking the pot off the fire and dousing the flames.
"They weren't wearing them earlier" explained Hinata, "but they are wearing Hidden Grass head plates."
Nenshō grabbed a fistful of kunai and channeled his chakra through them forming it into a short razor edge sword. "Guess we should handle them before they get too close." He said tilting popping his neck and shoulders.
"What about Tomi?" she asked looking over to the sleeping man it the tent. "We can't leave him alone without protection."
Nenshō groaned forgetting about the old man. "We can't very well take him with us" he explained stabbing the sword into the ground and forming hand signs a burst of flames and a clone appeared beside him.
"My clone can watch over him. We can wait for them to get close enough to ambush. If we stay close we can rush back here if the clone notices anything."
She nodded and took off into the woods Nenshō close behind. The veins around her eyes bulged as she activated her Byakugan. He looked at her eyes, despite knowing Kumo for years he had only seem his Byakugan once without his goggles when they were fleeing the Mist Prions over eight months ago. Hinata stopped on a branch and reached into her kunai holster pulling one of the blades out.
"Are they close?" he asked stopping by her side. Hinata nodded.
"They'll be coming this way soon" she explained, "try to take them alive, I want to know why this man is being hunted?"
Nenshō sighed; he hated taking prisoners it meant having to watch your back when you should be able to relax, also he had to care for their wellbeing and drag them around. He never felt right feeding people that would poison his own food given the opportunity.
"You're in charge but how do you plan to do that?" he asked raising an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Remember when you captured Tenten back in the Land of Waves?" she asked handing him a stack of shuriken.
Nenshō smirked, "yeah I do… rather fondly in fact."
"Infuse your chakra into these and we can use them." She said ignoring Nenshō. "We can get them the same way."
"We'll need to slow them down then." He explained, "It takes a second to shift the metal, I can use my fire Kekkei Genkai to hold them back."
"Do it" she said nodding to him.
Nenshō held his hand out and focused his chakra forming a large ball in his hand while Hinata tossed his shuriken on the ground and into the surrounding tree's.
"Just tell me when." He said seeing her sweat from the intense heat of the fireball. She nodded.
"Now!" she yelled and he hurled the fiery orb into the forest below shifting the flames into a barrier blocking the speeding shinobi. He smiled, too easy. He formed the hand signs and the metal shuriken bent to his will. The pointed ends of the stars shot out and formed into thick metal cables wrapping around the ninja's bodies. Hinata swooped down taking full advantage of the confusion her finger tips glowing blue with chakra. She moved in striking the restrained enemies blocking their chakra points.
"That was easy." Said Nenshō dropping down from the tree's looking at the incapacitated shinobi the metal cables wrapped themselves tighter around their bodies and lashed them to the tree trunks the wall of fire he had formed dissipated at his command. Hinata nodded.
"I guess this is where we ask them questions." He said sighing. Interrogation was another one of Kumo's specialties when they worked together. It's not that he couldn't extract information when needed to, he just hated the long hours and drilling the subject. Patience was something he had only a finite amount of. He wished using the subject as a punching bag would be more effective than it really was but if there was one thing he learned while being beaten in the Mist prison it was that pain could strengthen ones will. Not that his will matter much anyhow, when four of your ribs are broken and several teeth have been pulled its hard to think about anything other than the pain even if he wanted to give them details of his metal manipulation he couldn't remember them over the feeling of his feet being burned. It was counterproductive. Not to mention wasteful even if their methods did work on them he would only be able to tell them he didn't know a thing about the origins of his metal manipulation, talk about time poorly spent.
"Hey" he said stepping up to one of the Ninja lashed to the tree, he tightens the cables. Not enough to hurt him but just tight enough to cause some discomfort and give him a constant reminder of his less than ideal situation.
"Tell us why you've been following us and we can arrange for your relies back to your village." He said trying to sound somewhat diplomatic. The man look away from him staying stone quiet giving him a dose of the silent treatment. This was going to be a pain in his ass.
Ino scanned the snow covered forest trying to spot any sigh of Kumo. He had gone off to scout ahead with his Byakugan. He had insisted he could cover more ground alone and shorten their effort. They had short range radios for contact but by now he was probably out of range. Not that he was very talkative over it in the first place. He had hardly spoken to her after she had managed to get a look at his Byakugan. He hadn't given her any explanation of his Hyūga blood. He had said he would tell her about it after she had woken up but he'd told her nothing so far. She had argued and tried to pry some answers out of him before falling asleep but it hadn't worked. If he was quiet before this mask came off hew was now as quiet as the grave and completely stone faced. The last two days were spent in almost complete ominous silence. She wondered if this was because she had kissed him. The radio headset in her ear began to buzz with static.
"Ino" Kumo's electronically warped voice called in her ear.
"You find something?" she asked keying the mike.
"Yes" he said, "I'm five clicks southwest from your position I'll wait here for you."
Ino sighed and checked her compass to orient herself and took off into the woods. She had to watch herself in these trees the snow and ice had more than once slipped her up while moving through the trees but it was better and faster than moving though the chest deep snow that covered the ground.
After leaving the inn they had spent their time scanning through the wilderness moving from the direction the raiding party had come from. It didn't take long for her to notice the smoke. She stopped as soon as she spotted+ Kumo perched on a branch.
"So what's going on here why is there smoke?" she asked taking a perch beside him, she noticed him tense a little. He'd been keeping an arms distance from her since that night and it was starting to annoy her. Everything about him was starting to strain her nerves a little. She thought she made a little progress earning his trust and as soon as something happens he retreats back behind his mask. And to make things worse his protective friend was threatening to kill her for doing this very thing. Maybe if she managed to speak to Tenten before he found out she could bring him in line. She thought to herself. It was a poor decision to ignore Nenshō's threat but she just couldn't help but pry and find out the mystery of the quiet guy in the mask.
"A village was attacked." He said pointing off into the smoke, "By the look of it I'd say it was attacked sometime last night." He leapt forward and headed for the village.
The small village was empty with small signs of battle here and there. From all the smoke Ino expected to see most of the building to have been burned down. But the buildings were mostly in tact with only slight damaged. The wood had been partially charted but not completely burned through, the occasional kunai or arrow would be found on the ground or buried in the side of the building. It seemed like an empty village until she saw the bodies. They managed to make it to the center of the village. Ino tried to hold her lunch in when she saw the blackened skeletons piled in the square charred meat clung to the broken and scattered bones. Kumo kneeled and inspected one of the skeletons looking over the damage.
"What could have done this?" she asked looking at a burn mark on a building four long burn marks scarred the side like claw marks. Kumo remained silent and looked over at the claw marks. They walked through the ruins making a headcount of the bodies; most of the burned remains were unarmed or were equipped with poor improvised weapons. The village didn't seem to possess much of a threat to the rebel forces that moved through the valley.
A frozen corpse lay half buried in the snow unburned an axe was buried deep into the corpses gut a charred corpse lay off to the side only partially burned. Kumo grabbed the body and pulled it out of the ice with ease.
"Guess this gives a face to our enemy." She said looking at the large man being dragged out of the snow his gear and clothes completely untouched.
"They just left their comrade's body here?" she said watching as Kumo inspected his body. "They didn't even bother to bury him."
Kumo pulled back the man's shirt exposing his chest, a red and orange dragon was tattooed onto the man's chest. Kumo pulled a kunai from his holster and started to cut the skin around the inked skin.
"What are you doing?" she asked turning away from the gruesome scene.
"The Hokage needs to know about this." He said pulling away the strip of flesh.
"Why?" she asked looking as he rolled the skin up and placed it into a tube, followed by a note. Kumo pricked his finger and brought his hand to the ground to perform a summoning Jutsu.
In a puff of smoke two large red scorpions appeared before them covered in black markings. Kumo lashed the tube to one of the arachnid's backs and let the other clutch the note in its claws.
"Take this to the Hokage" he ordered and the scorpion carrying the note took off into the woods. "Take this to Nenshō… he'll understand."
"Are you going to explain anything to me?" she asked folding her arms watching the scorpion take off in a different direction.
"That dragon is a sign of the Kinzoku clan" he explained, "I never would have guessed they were in this country."
"Kinzoku?" she said, "Isn't that Nenshō's clan name?"
Kumo didn't answer her and began walking back into the town leaving the body behind.
"Wait up!" she yelled, "Listen I thought we agreed you'd start giving me some answers, if any of this involves Nenshō then I need to know. I've put up with your secrets and bullshit too long Kumo if you know anything about who did this I need to know. What happened to you saying you wanted to trust me?"
Kumo opened one of the doors to a building turning to look at her. "I don't have the right to tell you some of these secrets." He explained, "Nenshō's clan is his concern, I can't tell you anything."
"That's bullshit" she growled, "I'm not asking for his life story but I want to know what their capable of and why there in the country. The only life story I've been expecting to hear was yours but you've shut yourself off ever since you kissed me."
"I'm sorry if you were expecting something." He said moving inside of the trashed tea shop, "but I shouldn't have told you anything."
Ino sighed in frustration following him into the shop stepping over a body. "Why?" she huffed, "Because you decided to take a risk with me?" she asked stopping him with a hand on his shoulder, "listen I know you're used to keeping things concealed but don't sulk just because you decided to let your guard down in front of me."
"Sorry" he sighed.
"Stop saying you're sorry already." She yelled, "I'm not looking for apologies damnit I'm looking for the answers you promised me and stop getting defensive when I'm around you. Did that kiss really unnerve you so much?"
Kumo sighed, "Maybe a little." He confessed, "I'm not used to being caught off guard."
"That's kind of obvious" she said, "Now are you going to tell me everything or not."
Kumo sighed, "Fine… I'll tell you everything."