Chapter 8: Conditions

Naruto started to lift his foot off the ground to follow then planted it where he stood. Shikamaru didn't move at all.

The man turned around, noticing they weren't coming. "Come on."

Naruto shook his head from side to side. "We talk out here."

"It would be better if you come inside with me."

Again Naruto shook his head. "Anything you have to say, say it out here."

"Why?"

"Because you could be luring us into a trap. We're going into your place with your people on our own and we don't know what to expect. Once we're inside, it would be easy for you to lock us up or worse. Out here we have a chance to make a quick getaway. At least that's what Shikamaru just said. I agree, though."

The man sighed and stood in front of the open door. "If you want answers, you're going to have to come inside. I'm not telling you anything out here. Besides, you two look like you could use some food. I promise I won't do anything. You're ninja anyway. You can easily overpower me if you needed."

He had a point. Plus, Naruto was pretty hungry. If this man was offering a free meal, who was he to say no? Naruto stepped forward. Shikamaru tried to grab the back of his jacket with his teeth and missed. He couldn't leave Naruto alone. He had to follow.

The inside of the building smelled musty and damp, like wet grass. There were three different hallways they could take but the man took them down the one on the left. Shikamaru's hooves clopped on the wooden boards with every step. He was right behind Naruto, peering around constantly. The hall took them to an open area. It was like a little courtyard surrounded by hallways and bedrooms.

Naruto stopped and stared into the open area. "What the..?" He moved away from the group and over to the walled-in courtyard, leaning over the handrail.

Women and children. They were all in the yard, talking and laughing. The children were playing and some were cuddling up to their mothers. Some women were folding clothes and chatting and others were tending to their daughters or sewing.

"Are those... the women from the village?"

"You have a good eye." The man had come over to pull Naruto on his way. "They are the women. Another reason why I wanted you to come inside. I'll explain. Come this way."

Naruto followed the man away from the yard but kept his eye on the women until they were out of sight. They were led to a room nearby and told to sit down at the table. There weren't any chairs to sit on, just cushions and the table was short. Naruto took a seat while Shikamaru struggled to figure out how he was going to do this. He ended up sitting down on the floor, missing the cushions. Naruto thought he looked a lot like a dog sitting at the table of its master. Shikamaru didn't look too comfortable.

"I should introduce myself," said the man. "I'm Ko. I'm the head of the Susumu clan. Sorry about the other day at the other village. You must have gotten a bad impression of us."

"I'm Naruto and this is Shikamaru. And yeah, we kinda did. Didn't you kidnap those women? What exactly is going on? I sort of thought they would be locked up in a dungeon or tortured or something."

"No, far from it. We're not monsters. We do this every five years. It's tradition."

"Tradition to steal women from another village?"

Ko shook his head. "No, no. You have the wrong idea. Please let me explain."

Naruto's eyes wandered from Ko and over to the tray of food placed in front of him on the table. Fresh fruit and bacon and bread. He reached over and started grabbing. Shikamaru butted him again. "Ow! What? I'm listening."

"Eat all you like. We have plenty." Ko watched Naruto with an amused expression. He watched him carefully and studied how he ate with his clawed fingers. "Hungry, huh?"

"Starving. Eat, Shikamaru. He's offering."

"We're here to get information and get cured. Not stuff our faces!"

"What's wrong with doing both?"

"Did your deer... I mean, Shikamaru, just asked for information?"

"Yeah." Naruto swallowed. "You can understand him?"

"No. Just going off of your response and his expression." Ko sighed. "This isn't the first time I've seen people transformed into animals."

Naruto stopped eating. "You've seen this before? When? Where?"

"It's a long story. If you don't mind hearing it."

"No, no. Tell it." Naruto was very interested. "Also tell us about the women and the whole tradition thing."

"Well, you know the village you were at a few days ago? It used to be a lot bigger. In fact, we used to be part of it," said Ko.

"Really?"

"Yes. Our clans and villages were joined by marriage. The bride was from our clan and her husband was from that village. We became one when they were married. However, our clans didn't like each other very much. Mostly ours didn't like theirs. The Susumu clan always took pride in being strong and powerful. We protected our village against many dangers. We knew how to fight. The other village were mostly farmers. However, they did have men who didn't work. In fact, they didn't do much of anything. Our clan thought they were lazy. When we became one, we expected them to take part in what the joined village did."

"Let me guess. They didn't?" Naruto had a gut feeling about this one.

Ko sighed heavily. "You got it. Robbers tried to enter our village many times and it was the Susumu clan who drove them off while the men did nothing. We tried to train them but they insisted they knew what they were doing. However, whenever there was danger, they would call for us to come help them rather than fight for themselves. We thought they were cowards. Once, a woman was coming in from the field with her husband and they were jumped by a thief. He had a knife and threatened them. The husband stood still and watched the thief rob his wife's basket and did nothing to help her. When the Susumu clan questioned him he said 'what was I supposed to do?' and claimed that it was best to give them what they wanted rather than put his own life of the line. We thought he was a true coward, to let his own wife be robbed right in front of his eyes and he did nothing. It was one man. He could have done something."

"Did you guys train him?"

"We tried training many men in the village. Some were too lazy. Some did well, if only to get us to shut up about it." Ko became quiet for a moment and hung his head. "Then one night, there was a murder. The husband from the marriage merge. The one our clan member married. He was found dead in his house, blood was everywhere. It was during their watch."

Naruto's ears lowered. "The other clan was on watch that night?"

"Yes. We were certain the man was murdered. When we questioned the other clan, no one would own up to it. They blamed it on someone else."

"The murder?"

"No. Who allowed it to happen. Someone was away from their post. They should have been on watch but no one was found. Because of this, a man was dead. No one would take blame for that. In fact, some of the clan members said we were the ones who should have prevented it. It was our fault for putting them in charge that night, knowing they would be too lazy to be bothered to do it. Others said we were to blame because we were so strong, we should have been able to do something without their help. That started a massive fight between the clans."

"What about the wife? Your clan member?"

Ko sighed again. "She was so upset, she left the village. She said she couldn't take it anymore. Our bickering, no one owning up to anything, the constant blaming others and no one ever being at fault. With her husband dead and everyone pointing fingers at each other, she decided to leave and never returned. She wanted nothing to do with either clan. Story has it she moved to another village and stayed there to the end of her days."

Shikamaru nudged Naruto with a question. "How long ago did this happen, Shikamaru asks."

"About one hundred years ago. I wasn't born yet. Anyone who was alive back then to witness it is dead by now."

"Oh." Naruto had a question of his own. "What does this have to do with the women now?"

"Ah, yes. You see, after that and the wife left, our clans split again. Their village went back to being small and we went back to our land here. Even though we were no longer joined, we still worried about the other clan and the village. We feared for the women and children and their safety. The men clearly wouldn't do anything in the face of danger. So our clans had a meeting. It went on for days with much agruing. Finally, they settled on an interesting idea. If the men could prove themselves to our clan and show that they could protect their own people, we wouldn't interfere. We would test them. If they couldn't live up to our standards, we would take their women with us to a safe place and protect them ourselves. Which is why we had those three challenges. Those are the tests that were set up many years ago."

Shikamaru's brown eyes lit up. "I get it. Those tests make perfect sense."

"What do you mean?" asked Naruto.

"Don't you see? All those tests were to challenge them in certain ways but very practical ones. It's a lot like what we went through during the exams. Remember? They were just made easier because they weren't ninja so the bar is set lower than it would be for us."

"How does it work for them?" Naruto asked. "You said it made perfect sense."

"Think about it. The first challenge was against an armed man. Much like the thief who assaulted the man and his wife. They wanted to see if the men could stand up against and armed stranger. They have to be able to do that in order to protect not only themselves but others as well. The clan wasn't going to be there to help protect them anymore so they would have to be able to do it themselves which is what all those challenges were for."

Naruto had to admit, it did make a lot of sense. "What about the second challenge?"

"Teamwork coupled with impaired vision and less than ideal conditions. It was also to test them physically. Their endurance. Being under water, against three crocodiles you can barely see and have to find something you don't know much about. We didn't know which one had the object we were looking for. On missions, we go through a similar thing. We don't know where it is or if we're being baited. Same thing there. In that challenge, they had to do multiple things at once with one main goal."

"I thought they were alligators. Whatever. And the last one?"

"Again, more less than ideal conditions. There were so many things happening in that last challenge. What if there's an ambush at the village at night in the middle of a huge rainstorm and someone caused a stamped as a distraction, just to make things even harder. It was also our only timed challenge. Most of the time, time is of the essence. It's a race against the clock. It was also a hostage situation. We had to get there before the woman fell. A life was in danger, which happens on real missions. You know this."

Naruto nodded. "You're right. So they were testing them on a number of things that could happen to make sure they could handle themselves." Then he frowned. "Still, why put that woman at risk for the sake of a challenge?"

"Oh, we were never going to actually drop her," said Ko. "We just said that so there would be more danger and add to the urgency. Her falling was a complete accident. We never expected her to move like that. Our guy was reaching for her to put the harness on just in case and she fell over the edge."

"Ha!" Naruto pointed his finger in Shikamaru's face. "So I did make the right call! It was a good thing I broke the rules to save her!"

"You cost us the mission, Naruto! You! The fault is yours!"

Ko coughed to get their attention. "This challenge has been going on for one hundred years. The other clan managed to win the first few times and we were pleased. Then they got cocky and stopped training themselves, thinking they had natural talent. Then we took the women as punishment for losing the challenge. However, we always return the women after one year. We keep them that long for safety and for the men to sweat it out. Now that they know the women will be returned, it seems they've stopped caring. Because of this, some of us feel we should keep the women longer to scare them."

Since the men expected the women's return, they no longer bothered to take things seriously. They were taking everything for granted.

"And we have rules in place. One of the rules is no outside help," Ko explained. "The whole point of this challenge is for them to fight for themselves because help won't always come in time and they need to be able to do things on their own. Calling you broke the rules so we took the women. Normally, the village is allowed multiple tries over the course of a week. When they break the rules, they get no more chances and we take them. They knew this. They also knew they wouldn't be able to win as they were without help, like they haven't for the past few years. They've been failing more and more and now they're calling for aid. You guys are ninja. You can easily do these tasks. That is a massive rule breaker. They knew they couldn't not call for ninja and they did it anyway."

"So that's why that guy didn't want us to use any of our ninja skills. Dead giveaway." Naruto started eating a banana. "Sorry about all that. We were just hired to do a job. He didn't tell us this stuff."

"No, he wouldn't. No one from that village would because they knew you wouldn't help if you knew you would be breaking the rules for them."

"Then why are we animals? Explain that," said Shikamaru. When Ko did not respond, Shikamaru nudged for Naruto to translate.

"Shikamaru wants to know why we're animals. You said you've seen this before right?"

"Oh, right." Ko sat up straight in his seat. "We've seen this once before. Two of our clan members were transformed into animals nearly ten years ago."

"Really?" Naruto leaned forward.

"As a matter of fact, you met them during your second challenge."

Naruto cocked his head. "Hm? We did?"

Shikamaru nudged him. "The crocodiles."

"Shikamaru says-"

"Idiot, I was telling you that!"

"Sorry! I can't always tell what you want me to translate. Sheesh!"

"Your friend is right, Naruto. Two of those crocodiles are our friends. We were coming back from a challenge and they started feeling sick. One went into his room to sleep it off and the other went into the bathroom, thinking he was going to throw up. A couple hours later we found them. They were both crocodiles. We knew it had to be them because of where we found them. Plus, they told us who they were."

"You understood them?"

Ko nodded. "For part of the afternoon. Then all they could do was hiss. They were just as freaked out as we were. We didn't know what happened to them." Ko's gaze fell to the table, looking saddened. "We could no longer speak the same language, so we had to resort to other things. We started to notice a change in them soon after. They would only eat meat and wanted to stay in water for long periods of time. Then one day, they started snapping at us every time we came close. They would show us they were sorry when they came to their senses. But one time, there was no apology. They snapped and kept snapping from that day on. That was when we came to realize that they had become animals completely. They were no longer human."

Naruto felt frozen, held in place by fear and worry. "So... They lost their minds? They became crocodiles on the inside and the outside?"

"It would seem so. We tried everything to get them back but I think this will never change. They're stuck like this. They no longer recognize us. They have the minds of the animals they became." Ko lowered his head and Naruto could sense his sadness. "They were my clansmen. My friends."

"I'm sorry." Naruto meant it. It must have been horrible to watch his close friends and clan members become animals to the point they would no longer remember ever being friends. "So once they were gone, that was it? How long did that take?"

Ko had to think about it. "Uh... I suppose... about... a little over a week maybe? It did happen ten years ago. They started to act like animals before but one day they never came back and stayed that way. Even in their eyes, I could tell they were no longer in there. The animal had taken over."

Shikamaru and Naruto exchanged worried looks. Would that happen to them, too? Were they going to become animals permanently?

"Even so, we couldn't stand to put them down," Ko went on. "They were a part of our clan, after all. So we kept them with us, even after that. We put them in challenges so they would still be helping out and they have a pond in the back they can hang around in. We're still caring for them."

"But what changed them?" asked Naruto. "How did it happen?"

"To this day, we don't know. We still have no idea. We came back from the challenge, they said they felt sick and the next thing anyone knew, they had changed into animals."

"Sort of like us. I felt sick and then this happened." Naruto held up his furry tail. "We came back from the village after that challenge and here we are. Did the challenge do this to us?"

"I doubt it. We do this every five years and this has never happened before. Even after they changed, the following years were uneventful."

"Is it because we broke the rules?"

"No. They weren't in the challenge and they changed. And if it had to deal with rule-breaking then the man who employed you would have been changed as well."

"No, he's fine. We saw him." Naruto scratched his head. "I don't get it. Why did we change and not other people? Did those two guys do anything like we did? Maybe it was something they did or said or ate."

"Nothing worth mentioning. They have different likes for food, sleep in separate rooms. The one thing they really did together was play cards and other games. They were always accusing each other of cheating. But they do that sort of thing all the time. Otherwise, they argue about chores and who does what. Things like who left the water running and got the floor all wet, who didn't wash the table off and got sticky all over the papers they set down. Even whose fault it was something got eaten and no one is owning up to it. It was their thing. They always did that. So often, I've lost track over who says who did what. It was such a headache."

This didn't help very much. They still had no reason for this. Why did this happen? They still didn't know the cause.

The siding door opened and in came another member. "Ko, I couldn't help but overhear."

"Were you listening at the door, Keshi?" asked Ko.

The man looked down. "Maybe a little..." He lifted his head. "Can I say my piece anyway? It maybe important."

"Go ahead."

Keshi sat on the floor beside Naruto and Shikamaru. "It's about the wife from the story he told. Her name was Aramary. My grandfather told me about what his father had told him. My great-grandfather was there the night she found her husband dead. He heard what she had to say."

"What was it?" Naruto leaned forward, his pointed ears flicking slightly.

"That night, according to him, she became furious at the two clans. They were constantly blaming the other and never taking fault but passed it on to someone else. Even the ones who knew they were at fault wouldn't be truthful and now it had cost someone their life. She said she didn't care whose fault it was, she just wanted the fighting between the two to stop. She wasn't blaming anyone. Still, they fought. Even in front of the dead body of her husband. Finally, she snapped at them and announced that she was leaving because she couldn't take it anymore. She said that they were barking and snapping at each other like animals. Without rules they were no better than beasts. Would they be able to talk something over and decide something like humans or snap at each other like animals? She said something along those lines."

Naruto's ears perked up. "You think what she said has something to do with what happened to us? Was she a witch? Did she put a curse on us?"

Keshi shook his head. "She was no witch. However, they say that strong emotions could cause some strange things to happen. Because she felt so strongly about this, she managed to curse the land simply by feeling something so hard. I'm sure it's the land that's curse if there is a curse. Those two argued all the time here and nothing ever happened. They did it there and they came back as animals. You must not be able to do it on the land or you would become animals. I'm sure that's it."

Naruto's ear twitched as Shikamaru said something in his. "But you still have no way to cure us, asks Shikamaru."

"Not a clue." Keshi snapped his fingers. "However, maybe there is someone who can help you. Aramary."

Ko shook his head. "She never contacted the clan again after she left. She was so pissed off at everyone. Besides, she's been long dead by now. She would be at least 130 or 140 if she were still alive."

"Maybe, but she was expecting a child when she left," said Keshi. "According to my great-grandfather, she was due to have a baby in a few months. When she went to a new village, she must have had it there. Which means we have a possible descendant. Maybe they could do something to help them, if we can find them."

"That's something," said Naruto. "What's the village?"

"We don't know where it is exactly. We don't even know the name. She just said she was going to another village. Possibly the next one. With her expecting a baby, she couldn't travel too far without help. She was on her own."

"Where's the closest village, asks Shikamaru."

Keshi pointed over his shoulder. "The closest one would be in that direction. It's like a flower. Um... Um... Lica Village, I think. Something like that. I can get you a map."

"That's fine. It's just the next one, right?" Naruto pointed. "That way, right?" He turned his head, looking at the deer. "Do we really need a map? Then you carry it." Naruto frowned. "Hey, don't go there."

Keshi grinned, raising his brow. "I wish I knew what that deer was saying."

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