38. Shattered Confidence
To top it all off, it had started raining heavily. March was always turbulent, but it had been good so far, and Minato couldn't think of any reason why Mother Earth had decided it should rain on that particular day.
He kept glancing at Kushina, who seemed focused on the mission and rarely looked away from the path ahead of her; but the few times she did, something scraped on the film of concentration. They stopped once underneath a particularly thick tree, sheltered from the rain, to get something to eat – they hadn't eaten anything before they left, after all – and Minato took her aside just to make sure nothing was seriously wrong.
"We don't have time to discuss it now," Kushina said. "I don't even know if there's anything to worry about. It's not as important as this, all right?"
Minato nodded half-heartedly. "But ... Is it ..."
Kushina must have read his face, because she smiled, cupping his face with her hands. "It's nothing you've done, all right?"
He nodded again, relieved this time.
"We'll deal with it later," Kushina said. "Don't think about it. You need to focus right now. We need you to focus right now. You're in charge, remember?"
"Yeah," Minato said, wiping away a few wet strands of hair which were uncovered of his hood and trying to keep his posture a bit more professional.
There were two things that could keep Minato from thinking about it: one, Kushina didn't seem harmed or injured in any way. Two, even though it seemed like a shared problem (although Kushina had mentioned there might not be anything to worry about), he had at least not been the blame for it.
And so they set off again, other problems in mind.
"How are we going to get them all to the border post later?" Rin asked as they ran down the South-East track, Kuromaru and Tsume in the lead to track down the correct path.
"I still have a few Hiraishin kunai at that particular post," Minato said. "So we just need to knock them out and I'll have us all transported near the cells."
"It's not too far away, is it?" Kushina asked.
Minato smiled and shook his head. "I've improved the distance since last year, so I can take longer trips. Shouldn't be a problem unless we can't find them." He raised his voice to reach out to Tsume. "Tsume, how's it looking?"
Tsume looked around her, sniffing. "I'm not sure," she shouted back. "Many people walk here, it would've been easier if we had anything to compare their smell with. And the rain washes everything away."
"We should choose a smaller path," Allen said behind Minato. Seeing as Minato was in charge of attack, he lay ahead of Allen's team to take any resistance.
"Wait," Tsume shouted. "There are four sets of smells turning here."
"I can smell it, too," Kakashi said through his mask, looking into the dripping forest and stopping along with the others.
"Where does it lead?" Minato asked.
"Far in," Tsume replied. "But these are the only smells that doesn't smell like merchants or civilians."
"We'll have to take the chance," Allen said. "We've already been running further than what we were expected to run."
The others agreed. Minato and his team caught up with Tsume to prepare for a possible ambush or attack, while Allen, Kushina and Rabi fell only a few feet behind. They ran for what seemed like half an hour in total silence, listening to anything at all and searching for footsteps. The rain had naturally washed any evidence of walking people away, but eventually, Tsume could reassure the group that they were getting closer.
"It's clearing," Tsume said. "Their smell. I can definitely smell something foreign, like red sand."
Minato held out his hand to stop the group – everyone stopped synchronously – and crouched, placing a finger on the ground.
"You're right," he said. "Four people, a few hundred feet ahead. Four completely different chakras I've never sensed before."
"Let's make a plan of attack before we burst in," Allen said, crouching drowsily next to Minato. "We need to divert the three kidnappers from the girl. One from the charging team should surprise them; if we're lucky, they haven't noticed us yet. Try to split them up so we can get to the girl first – that's the most important part of the mission – and get her to the border before we take on the rest."
"I can split them up," Minato said. "Kushina probably has the best chance to knock anyone out, so she should take on the surprise. That can be one man down in a moment, and save us from a lot of struggle. She can also use the element of surprise to get to the girl quickly as long as I've managed to separate the rest, and that's when the rest of my team can take on the other two from behind, and you'll get her away from the field."
"But we need to get her to the border at once," Allen said.
"Minato can teleport himself to me," Kushina said. "And then send us directly to the border and back within seconds."
"All right," Allen said and summed up the plan. "Minato splits them up, Kushina takes out the first. Then the charge team takes care of the rest while we save the girl. And then Minato gets us to the border, and that's where we part."
Minato nodded.
"Let's go."
Silently, yet quickly, they made their way through the thicker and thicker forest towards the place where the four foreigners sat. Tsume held up three fingers, taking one down at a time to show that they were two hundred feet away – one hundred feet away – fifty feet away.
They could hear voices. Unclear, low voices. They hid behind thick trees and peered out to see. The four foreigners had found a small clearing, enough for the four of them to sit in. One of them was small, with long, dark red hair and her hands cuffed. The one holding her in a chain wore the headband of Iwa while he quietly ate a sandwich. The other two sitting opposite them, were huge. They were quite alike – twins, perhaps – with tanned skin, large, muscular bodies and white clothing. Together, they made the girl and the guard miniature in comparison.
Minato drew three kunai in his left hand and motioned for Kushina to come closer. He nodded towards the large men, suggesting they might take out one of those first; naturally, they would go for the guard to begin with, but with two heavy, sour-looking bodyguards like that, taking them out without killing them would be a struggle unless they managed to surprise them one more time. Killing the girl was not in the Earth's intentions, so getting to her first, despite being important, was not necessarily their best option.
As Allen caught up with their plans, he nodded, drawing a kunai to get ready for the attack. Minato sent his team behind the guard and silently told them to wait for his signal. He grabbed Kushina's arm, moving silently away from the tree – had any of them turned their heads or looked up, they would be noticed – and he acted.
The three kunai flew in the air, landing dangerously close to the Iwa shinobi, in the middle of their circle. Each of them threw their food away and was jumping back, splitting up; they had turned their heads and looked right between the trees where the weapons had been thrown, but there were no one there.
A fourth kunai had been thrown, a few feet above one of the large twins' head. Minato and Kushina appeared, Kushina above Minato and Minato holding her around her wrist, creating a shadow above the large twin, making him look up and stare straight into light blue eyes.
With Kushina's fist glowing of furious chakra, Minato did one thing he never thought he'd ever do: he threw her.
The impact was enough to shake the ground, making a loud noise like nearby thunder as the large man was pushed to the ground with immense speed and power. Before Minato landed on the ground, he made a signal, and in the corner of his eyes he could see the guard fall backwards as three ten-year-olds attacked and Allen, Tsume and Rabi appeared by the girl's side, cutting her chains off and leading her away. The large man lay still on the ground, dust surrounding him, red-haired girl above him with her fist dug deep into his stomach. She straightened up and fell behind as the second twin roared and burst forward.
Minato made a few hurried hand seals and made a small hurricane, barely blasting the large, heavy man away. It had been enough to save them time, though.
If it hadn't been for the hand sticking up from the ground.
It had grabbed Minato by the ankle; he had sensed it the moment before and drawn his sword, and was now digging it deep in the ground. The hand lost its grip around him and they fell back.
"There are three men underneath us!" Minato shouted. How had they not noticed? Their smell and chakra should have been detected long ago, yet no one had sensed them. The guard was down thanks to Kakashi, Obito and Rin, but they now had more than expected to deal with.
"We have to get to the girl," Kushina said as the three new men emerged from the ground in front of the heavy twin, making a barrier between them and the girl. They were all wearing the same sort of uniform, but in different colours; red, green and blue. The green man had a bloody gash on his shoulder from Minato's sword. They attacked before Minato could make a new plan, so he drew his swords. They had no other option than to fight their way through. Constantly making sure his team managed, he got into a fight of speed between himself and the green man. In the background, the second twin was crouching by his brother, doing nothing to contribute to the fight. Allen and Rabi were disappearing with the girl, but Tsume and Kuromaru had lingered and was now coming back to fight.
Minato thought they were about to prevail when he heard a shriek behind him; turning, he saw Obito and Kakashi fall to the ground and the red man pick up a fainted Rin. The green man attacked and he had to block, and he kicked him away, turning to see the red man run.
The large man had attacked before any of them could react. With one large blast, blue of chakra and explosive, he landed a fist straight in the middle of Kushina's stomach.
Minato could see the damage it had done by simply watching her face turn shocked; her eyes widened, her mouth slightly open but not making a single sound. Seconds after the blast landed, Minato appeared next to her and kicked the man out of her way with the strongest force he could muster. The green and blue men had withdrawn their weapons and were following the red man.
"Rin!" Obito shouted, getting up.
"Obito, don't go after them!" Minato shouted and turned as the large man charged at him; he couldn't simply avoid the attack, or he would hit Kushina; quickly drawing hand seals, he blasted the man away with a stronger Wind technique that made the man stumble and fall, just as he heard Kuromaru barking behind him.
He turned again. Kushina was crouching on the ground, coughing up blood.
"We have to get her away from here!" Tsume shouted. "Something's wrong with her – Minato –"
"I'll take you back to the border," Minato heard himself say and ran towards Kushina, where Tsume was crouching. "Kakashi, Obito, I'll be back in a few seconds, wait for me here -"
He saw Kakashi nod and Obito stare out in the distance before he dropped a Hiraishin kunai, transported the three of them back to the border, and with a last reassurance from Tsume that she would take care of her, returned to the point of battle, where he immediately drew his two swords and put them together to make a double-bladed sword, and attacked.
The new surprise had been just surprising enough to give him time to stab the large man in the chest. His skin was astoundingly thick and hard, but the injury had been enough.
"I thought we weren't supposed to kill them?" Kakashi asked as the twin fell to the ground with a loud crash.
"I didn't," Minato said and wiped some wet hair away from his face again. His hood had fallen off. "I avoided his vitals. We'll get back here later and bring them to the border."
"I can't see her any more," Obito said with a voice full of angst.
"Kakashi can track them," Minato said. "They can't have run far. We'll get her back."
The words were reassuring enough with his voice so full of confidence, yet something inside him had started tearing up. The stress of the situation, the fact that they couldn't get the girl to the border quicker, the serious injury Kushina had received and the men who had dragged Rin away; a picture flashed in his mind of a young boy and a young girl, lying on the ground, red blood mixing with the water around them, while he stared in their empty eyes.
He tried to shake the memory off. He couldn't.
Leaving the Hiraishin kunai and the large twins behind, they set off in the thick, wet and muddy forest.