It was nice not having to manually hold their boat in place, Itachi mused to himself as he watched the sun slowly rise over the horizon. This time, they had taken to rotating the night watch, seeing as he himself would also need his energy during the day.
It was time to get the others up. They needed to finalize their strategy.
He lightly knocked on the cabin door, the action being enough to awaken his companions.
'Well', he smiled, 'if our new swordsman doesn't wake, I'll hear about it in a few seconds.'
As in on cue the quiet was broken a loud crash followed by the loud cursing of their newest team member. He wondered how the 3 ninjas had decided who got the honours.
As amusing as this was, he hoped Mihawk learned quickly.
His ears were ringing slightly from the volume of those curses. The man did have a fine pair of lungs, though. If had anything but an earth affinity, he could be quite formidable with the more basic jutsus.
Speaking of which…
Itachi turned towards the samurai, who grumpily glared at Sasori as if the smaller man was the root of all his problems.
Repressing an amused snort, Itachi coughed lightly to get their attention.
"Dulacre-"
"Just Mihawk is fine. No need for formalities. I'm part of your team now after all."
"Mihawk.", Itachi acknowledged with a nod, "How well can you use chakra?"
The samurai sheepishly scratched the back of his head.
"My instructions focused more on swordsmanship for the first few years I got to train. I learned the basics and kept doing the exercises to expand my reserves every day but all in all, I can only imbue it into my sword to strengthen slashes. I never got to complete my training before they died…"
"Hn… Channel it."
"Hm?"
"Channel it through your sword. I want to check your reserves and control"
Mihawk did.
His reserves were quite good, for a basically untrained samurai. Probably a little lower than what the average jonin would have, but the amount wasn't always what counted. Especially for Kenjutsu specialists. If he mastered his weapon properly he would be a real powerhouse.
But that wasn't important right now.
What was important was the control he had over that power.
They would need to plan accordingly if they couldn't teach him to water-walk in a short period of time.
Itachi took out an empty scroll and drew a basic seal to contain fluids on it. The whole process didn't take more than 10 seconds, he was that familiar with the process.
Swiftly, he walked to the edge of the boat and sealed 10l of seawater inside.
Mihawk watched all of this in slight disbelief.
That… was a seal, right?
"You… aren't afraid to use those things?", he hesitatingly asked.
"You saw what happened to that island because of a destroyed seal, right? How can you still use them so casually?"
He was panicking slightly. What if that scroll blew up? They were all going to die!
Itachi's eyes softened slightly. He had half expected for the man to react badly to this. After all, his family had basically been destroyed as a result of a seal and he himself didn't know much if anything about the art.
He placed his free hand on the samurai's shoulder to calm him down, before explaining.
"Don't worry. This is safe. The energy source is different."
"W-what do you mean?"
"The transport seal, at least on our side, pulled chakra from its surroundings to work. So it was constantly filled with energy, which exploded once it was destroyed. This seal cannot do that. It only works for the duration someone actively puts in chakra and instantly stops once you stop touching it. It's safe."
Mihawk stared at Itachi, silently scanning the ninja's face.
He seemed to find what he'd been looking for since he took a deep breath to calm down. He had nearly hyperventilated just then. How embarrassing.
He sheepishly scratched the back of his neck and accepted the scroll from his captain.
"Hn, the more chakra you put into this seal, the higher the amount of water that will be released. I want you to put in as little chakra as you can. I want no more than a drop of water", Itachi instructed.
If Mihawk's control was fine enough for this, then he would attempt to teach him water walking. If it wasn't, well that just meant there were fewer possibilities for them to decide from.
The swordsman felt the ninjas' gazes burning into his back. No pressure, huh.
He concentrated on the familiar energy inside of him. He reached out his proverbial fingers and plucked just a small threat from his reserves, guiding it into the scroll in his hands.
*Poof*
The small cloud of smoke nearly made him drop the scroll entirely. His shirt was drenched in seawater.
One of the ninjas snorted.
He bet it was Sasori, the sadistic bastard.
When the embarrassed Mihawk finished changing his shirt, the team sat in a makeshift circle around the small boat, ready to brainstorm and decide on a plan of attack.
"Kisame.", was all Itachi said.
"Aaa, captain. I got close enough to the whirlpool yesterday to get a rough idea of the interior. It's around a meter wide at the bottom and stays around that width until opening up around 50m later. Up to 4m from the very bottom seem to stay untouched by the water, at least they did for the hour I watched yesterday. So all we need to do is get in and out, no constant management of the thing is necessary."
That was good. They would still ready the big guns for just in case, of course.
"That being said I'd like to put forth an idea. This is the one with the least effort required that I could think of. There's also no real danger of waking up that ostrich fish."
"Ostrich fish?", Mihawk asked.
"Aaa, I found a big ostrich eel hybrid sleeping down there. No idea what it is exactly but since it's an unknown threat level we thought it's best not to disturb it."
There was a sea king down there!?
Mihawk hastily proceeded to explain what sea kings were to the ninjas. While he was sure they could drive it off, preventing its escape and potential return with backup, if it was one of the more cautious and speedy ones out there, was another story.
"So… are they edible?", Sasori asked.
"…Yes."
Why was he even trying.
They finally decided on 3 possible plans, all of which as time-efficient as the other, and prepared accordingly.
Mihawk would mainly watch during their execution since he'd never worked with the team before. This was his chance of getting an idea of how they operated.
Itachi had lent him one of his spare rebreathers for the duration of their investigation. It was an amazing invention. He didn't even dare to imagine what the government would do if they got their hands on it though. It would make the life of many people quite a bit harder, that's for sure.
Since all members of the team would work on this, they decided to seal up the boat for now.
Mihawk watched in fascination as tiny characters spread from the unassuming scroll in itachi's hand before the whole boat disappeared with a nearly silent swish of displaced air.
The scroll itself then vanished even more silently.
At Mihawk's questioning look, Itachi merely pointed to a small tattoo that could be mistaken for a mole on the side of his wrist. Right. He had used normal ink on that scroll, which would easily get smeared by the seawater. A tattoo didn't have that problem.
The group dove at an angle, following Kisame as he lead them to their positions. Sasori, Kisame, and Itachi formed a triangle around the whirlpool, close enough that they could instantly disrupt the tide around the whirlpool.
Deidara got into position next to Kisame. They were ready.
At Kisame's signal, they each performed the necessary jutsu. Deidara pushed off the nearest piece of rock and towards the center of the whirlpool, making use of the tide that had yet to be fully redirected to reach his goal.
The water around him was churning uneasily, filling the void left by the suddenly absent phenomenon, making it quite tricky to reach his position. But he managed.
He flashed through his own handseals and summoned a small protective dome made of rock. Moments later, the now-familiar roaring of the whirlpool was back, deafening and wild. Even when the water ripped chunks out of his protection, Deidara stayed calm and just recast the jutsu to reconstruct the small dome.
Finally, after the 3rd time Deidara had to do a patch-job, a familiar chakra signature flared in the correct pattern.
With one more hand-seal and a small spike of chakra, the dome dropped and the water surrounding Deidara ebbed away. True to Kisame's observation, the inside of the whirlpool measured around 1 meter. He was standing ever so slightly off centre with the violently spinning water just close enough to touch if he so chose to.
Deidara promptly got to work.
He took out a small summoning scroll Itachi had lent him for this purpose and summoned one of the man's smaller crows to his side.
The crow cawed in annoyance as it was sprayed with seawater immediately upon being called, before turning red Sharingan eyes to observe its surroundings.
He allowed the bird to perch on his shoulder as he performed a small sensory technique Iwa shinobi often used to find a place to camp that didn't require them to sleep on a rock. He wasn't that proficient with the jutsu, having never seen the point of mastering it, but it was enough for his needs right now.
He could merely scan a 25m radius and a depth of 2m.
From what they figured, the seal was most likely carved into stone. It couldn't be buried deeply either or the arrival point wouldn't be considered 'free' but rather 'blocked'.
"Gotcha! Un!", Deidara said with a triumphant grin.
There was a 0,5m square stone plate buried just to his right, around 15 cm deep below the wet sand.
Deidara put on some gloves, crouched down and dug.
He could of course use a jutsu for this as well, but if he did happen to lose control even slightly he could potentially destroy the seal.
Honestly, if the ground wasn't made of pure rock around the edges of the whirlpool, things would've been so much easier.
Carefully, he dug out the plate.
'Jackpot!', he thought as he saw the seals carved inside.
He carefully lifted the plate out of the small hole, eyes on the whirlpool surrounding him as he did so. The seal was potentially still linked to its power source, so there was a possibility of an adverse reaction to him moving it.
The whirlpool continued roaring, undisturbed even as Deidara finally felt assured enough to handle the plate normally. He wrapped it into an old piece of cloth and placed it into a waterproof shoulder bag for transport.
Time to get out of there. The moving walls of water were starting to make him claustrophobic.
Deidara nodded to the crow before silently reopening the summoning scroll in invitation. It dutifully dismissed itself.
His extraction happened roughly the same way as his entrance, just in reverse.
The plan went off without a hitch.
Ok, there was a small hitch.
The first time the 3 ninjas had redirected the flow of the tide, the ostrich sea king had woken up after all. But as soon as it had opened its eyes, the unfortunate creature had met the ominously spinning gaze of the young Uchiha.
Long story short, they now knew Genjutsu worked very well against sea kings. They also currently had a new pet, at least until Itachi found a good place to gut the gigantic fish properly. So… yea, not really a hitch.
He looked into the sad, big eyes of the ostrich currently curling it's body around their boat, trying to act cute.
"…"
He wondered if it'd taste like chicken or like fish?
They were currently once more a safe distance away from the steadily turning whirlpool. Everyone was dried off somewhat and they were once more sitting in a circle. This seemed to slowly become a custom of theirs.
Everyone silently watched on as Deidara carefully unwrapped his precious cargo.
"That's the only intact plate I found", Deidara elaborated as he placed the plate carefully in the middle.
"There were a few small shards of broken stone but nothing big enough to house a proper transportation or arrival seal matrix."
The ninjas were staring at the seals carved into the plate in concentration. Mihawk, not knowing the first thing about seals except that they could be dangerous and could transport or store things, could only quietly wait as the silence stretched on.
Unexpectedly, Kisame was the first to break the silence.
The swordsman groaned in disappointment and flopped back to lie on his back. Deidara was glaring at the piece of offending stone as if it'd personally killed his puppy, and Itachi himself had closed his eyes, expression unreadable. Mihawk's heart sank.
"As we had feared", Sasori was the first to voice out their conclusion, "There's no way back."
That summed it up pretty well, didn't it.
Another long period of silence was broken by the sad coo of their new pet sea king.
'As I thought, keeping it around isn't good. Stupid bird can't even read the atmosphere', Kisame cursed to himself.
"What", he asked none of them in particular, "are we going to do now?"
The blue-skinned ninja would never admit just how defeated he sounded just then.
Itachi's eyes slowly opened once more, his gaze still locked onto the seal matrix in front of them.
"For now", he said with a determination he didn't quite feel, "we destroy it."
""What !?""
"This seal. It's only to anchor arrivals. If they accidentally destroy a part of the transportation seal while collapsing the cave tomorrow, the Elemental Nations, or at least a large part of them, could end up the same way as that island, or even worse, what with the nature chakra I'm sure it managed to store up during its century long inactivity. Even though we cut ourselves off from any potential backup that may arrive, destroying this is the only way to safely destroy the other. If this is gone, it'll become inactive. The only thing that'll happen once it's destroyed is that the area will be overflowing with nature chakra for the time it takes to dissipate, nothing else."
Itachi explained patiently.
"Once we find a way to return, I don't wish to return to a sight like this.", he admitted quietly. Once, not if, not may, but once they did.
That one word expressed all Itachi had wanted to say.
He did not give up. He would find a way to return, return home, return and let his little brother have his revenge. He owed him that much.
Strangely enough, that one word was enough to raise the others from their temporary funk.
Mihawk smiled in relief that they wouldn't give up on the search and Kisame grinned his shark-like grin at Itachi, silently thankful for the teen's positivity. Even Sasori had a determined gleam in his eyes.
"Un, let's do it. No need to get all depressed, I bet we'll find another way quickly enough.", the ever-energetic bomber demonstratively pumped his fist before decisively snatching the seal matrix they had spent so many hours to receive this morning and throwing it into the sky.
A small white owl made of clay followed right after, flashily blowing the small plate into a thousand pieces.
Itachi smiled ever so slightly at the display.
"This", he remarked as the small splinters of what was once their crushed hope rained down on them, "is just the beginning."
'Wait for me, little brother!'