Heyyy.
How are you? How's your day going?
Here's another chapter of Red Demon, for your reading pleasure. I enjoyed writing this one :D
Enjoy…
CHAPTER 11
Stamina vs. Stamina.
Chakra vs. Chakra.
Naruto's wind bullets impacted Mei's missiles, spraying them in each direction his sharingan directed him to, smashing and imploding the warheads as they honed toward him, screaming murder and burning the air.
The rocky platform Naruto stood on was the only thing separating him from the molten lava of the floor of the pit, though he wasn't spared the heat and fumes. The pit encompassed half of the village, yet Naruto and Mei somehow made the large space smaller through their ceaseless fighting.
He cancelled his jutsu at the same time Mei stopped her onslaught, copying her hand seals as she blurred her fingers into another jutsu.
The two called them out at the same time.
"Fire style: Great Fireball Jutsu."
The two bellowed columns of fire from their lungs, fingers laced together in a ram seal and pouring sweat, pushing to outlast the other in this battle.
The opposing fires, one a blistering shade of blue and the other a blazing red colour, collided in a roar of gas and rose up, shooting out of the pit and into the open air. Even as the two ninjas fastened their feet to the ground with chakra, the force of each of their jutsus served to shuffle their planted feet back. This breathless burning continued for five more seconds, before that too was cancelled and Mei withdrew, guarding her face against a fist with her forearms, snapping her arms apart and sliding away from a right hook and racing back with a kick for Naruto's jaw, heaving as she pulled her foot back when the boy dodged, avoiding him breaking her ankle with the base of his palm.
Naruto dragged his arm back and whipped a low kick to her leg, the only one still planted on the ground, and Mei fell back with a thud, landing on the heated rock she and Naruto had been balancing on. He capitalized on her fall by lifting his right foot vertically, though Mei got both of her hands flat on the ground on either side of her head, flipping back to her feet in time to avoid a fatal axe kick.
The dodged blow shattered the rock they were on, splintering it violently and sending Mei smashing into the wall of the pit.
She clambered out of the wall without a second thought, only to see red when a straight punch knocked her head, and body, back into the wall.
Doggedly, she tore herself out again, only to be slammed back into the wall with another unrestrained blow.
By now, the cut on her temple was bleeding profusely, and she needed some seconds to blink away her daze.
She smiled and slumped into that wall. "Seems you can't use your Ghost Speed Release like you normally do, pretty boy," she scoffed, studying his form as he stood a few feet from her, seeing under his skin using her rinnegan, she found the vibrated mass of poison he focused on keeping away from his internal organs, isolating outside of his stomach.
Naruto didn't give her a reply.
Instead, his sharingan spun clockwise and he switched his stance, changing to a complete Uchiha Fist fighting style.
Segments of Mei's back opened and she was thrust out of the hole in the wall, shooting in a blur of fire and gas toward her opponent. The rockets of the jetpack in her back, burning hot blue and eating away at the little oxygen in the pit, propelled her to Naruto at scorching speeds.
Naruto clapped his hands together, forming five sharp hand seals and spitting, "Wind Style: Great Breakthrough."
The wind jutsu slammed into Mei, like a moving train would ram into another moving train, and Mei could only steer herself to the right, skimming the edge of the pit as Naruto exhaled furious air from his mouth. The wind supercooled the lava wherever it passed over, pushing some of the heat and smoke out of the pit, though the majority of the pit was still sweltering.
He cut his jutsu short and dove out of the way, avoiding being sliced in half by a laser.
He gnashed his teeth with a curse.
Mei was pleased that, for a second time, she had caught him unaware. Her outstretched left hand, for which she a finger gun pointed at the boy, thrummed as chakra built up from her reserves and powered down her arm, hissing to the tips of her fingers and wailing a red laser to Naruto, who scampered off the ground and blazed toward her in a zigzag, barely keeping out of touch from the laser.
Like she had said, he could only use his Ghost Speed Release in bursts, not wanting to risk forgetting about Orochimaru's poison for even a nanosecond, else the result would be worse than what would happen if Mei Terumi captured him alive.
Running, leaving a trail of afterimages in his wake, Naruto got to Mei and the woman swerved aside from his reckless tackle, the jetpack in her back sputtered to a stop when he harshly shoulder clipped her side, dropping her on her feet. The same case happened to her laser, flickering to an end and leaving her index and middle fingers tingling with lingering heat. She grimaced, grabbing her left eye.
It was her turn to curse.
And Naruto, speeding up the wall of the pit and vaulting off when he was some fifty feet off the now hardened lava floor, gave the woman a wide smirk as he backflipped over her head, flicking his fingers into seven hand seals.
"Chakra Construction: Javelins."
The process looked slow to her rinnegan eye, but the reality was that it happened in an instant.
She watched as red, misty chakra pulsed out of Naruto's body, oozing and warping through his clothes and spreading about him. Then the red mist began dividing itself into sections, clustering closer and tighter until what remained were javelins.
Dozens and dozens of red javelins.
Naruto broke his last hand seal and jerked his arms down at her, pointing his left and right finger guns at her. His sharingan deactivated itself, too low on chakra to be used anymore, sending his hail of javelins to her with the accuracy of his normal eyes.
Mei hastily backtracked five jumps, closing her left rinnegan eye to conserve what little chakra she had left, only to be violently jerked in place when she made to take a sixth backwards jump, realizing that two javelins had pinned her right foot into the ground.
More rained down.
Four tore into her shoulders and slammed into the hardened floor, forcing her into a contorted, slanted upright position. She jerked, breaking her foot free, only for more javelins to meet their mark.
Three shot into her right thigh and pinned her to the ground, two more raced through her right hand, and snapped down when she swung it up to defend herself. One stuck into her left shin, breaking through bone, and two more javelins shot into her thigh.
Two last javelins passed through both sides of her gut, hardly missing her liver and kidneys, but fastening her to the ground nonetheless.
With the few that met their mark, there were dozens more littered about her, stuck upright on the hardened lava.
He perched on one of his javelins, easing himself down and sprinting his way through the javelin thicket to her. Mei panted, wheezing for her weary chakra reserves to give her something to use against him.
Her reserves weren't anything to scoff at.
She could go as far as saying that her reserves could rival the Third Hokage's if he were alive. Yet, her rinnegan eye ate into her chakra with a ravenous fervour, and that was when she wasn't using a barrage of missiles or her lasers; keeping up to Naruto's speed and tempo wore down her eye, which in turn wore down on her chakra.
In the worse way possible and at the worst time possible, she was spent.
Naruto clocked her across the face and her head snapped to the left with the strike, knocked out and oblivious to the rest of the world.
His vision blurred and he wavered to his knees, though his chakra javelins stayed corporal.
He grated his teeth and hissed, "C'mon. Not now."
He grabbed a javelin sticking out of Mei's right thigh and gasped himself to his feet, struggling and panting to set both of his feet flat on the ground. Supported by the javelin, he reached into the pouch at his lower back and yanked out a kunai.
"I won't do that if I were you."
Naruto stilled, petrified on the spot. Tendrils of killer intent poured on him, wrapping around his airways and dimming his sight at the loss of precious oxygen. The kunai, primed to stab Mei in her left eye, faltered, harmlessly released from Naruto's hold for it to clatter noisily on the ground.
The silence that followed inside the pit raised Naruto's heckles.
He gasped, clutching at his heart.
The invisible pressure pressed down on him as if gravity itself had doubled.
"Damn it…" he exhaled shakily, frozen. He coughed up blood, feeling his grasp on Orochimaru's poison loosen. He scraped his reserves for chakra, finding barely anything of note. "Kami, not now. Please, not now."
A pair of bright pink eyes peeked out from around Naruto's back, the rest of the person's visage was bathed in blackness.
Yagura chuckled at Naruto's struggle.
"Poor child," he cooed, shadowed lips pouting with a mocking lilt in his dark voice. "You've fought so hard, only to still die in the end."
"G-Ghost Speed Release:"
Yagura raised an eyebrow, cocking his head to the side, "Oh?"
"Great Escape."
Yagura's clawed right hand stabbed into Naruto's lower back, grunting when the person he had injured turned out to be an afterimage.
Although still, the tips of the Mizukage's claws were red with Naruto's blood. His gnarly hand steadily shifted back to normal, claws receding and fingers shortening to their usual length.
Turning to his failure of a slave, unconscious and bent upright by Naruto's red javelins, and regarding her with his hands behind his back. Yagura muttered, "Next time."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Chojuro erupted from the water, gritting his teeth after receiving an uppercut to the nose.
Rin flickered above him, blinding him momentarily with a shower of yellow lights, and whacked him back to the water with a descending axe kick to the top of his head.
Chojuro slapped onto the water, finding a Rin water clone inside, that wrestled her arms behind his head in a chokehold, rising out of the water and standing on it.
"Ack!" Chojuro choked, winding his arms around in a mad, senseless struggle. "Kah!"
Rin surfed on Samehada, fixing her feet onto the sword with chakra and thrashing against the turbulent waves. She closed in on her opponent, right arm outstretched and eyes narrowed into thin slits.
Her clothesline jostled Chojuro's brain, concussing him and flattening her water clone.
She watched him sink, the blood dripping from her broken nose tapering.
Standing on Samehada, she reached both of her hands up to her nose, gripping her nostrils with her right and using the left to support her right hand. She closed her eyes and braced herself, snapping her nose to the right with a grisly crack.
Tears fell from her eyes after doing that, blurring her vision.
In its flattened, bandaged form, Samehada shuddered.
"I'm ok," she replied, hollow, watching the Kiri ninja descend unconsciously deeper into the water. "He's lucky I don't want him dead."
Samehada chattered, shivering.
"You're right. He won't even be fighting me if not for the hypnosis."
The sword puffed a little, shrieking a quiet sound.
"And I told you before, we can't just decide on our own to kill Yagura. If we do that, our dad would get into trouble with the other Kages for something we did on our own." She took a lecturing tone, shaking her finger at the sword, "Just because Kisame bulldozed his way through life doesn't mean that's how things are normally done."
The sword shrieked, this time louder, chittering its flattened scales.
Rin sternly perched her hands on her hips, glaring at Samehada, "Don't you take that tone with me-"
She stopped herself short and turned to her right, bracing again and lowering her centre of gravity by bending her knees, and holding her arms back.
Naruto blurred into her, slamming into her enough for Samehada, under Rin's feet, to scream and exhale chakra to stabilize itself.
One moment there was no one but Rin, the next Naruto was slumped onto her back.
Rin found it hard to process this image, of her brother fleeing for his life, but her senses jerked back to her when Naruto coughed blood onto her shoulder, eyes shut. Her connection to him warned her that his chakra was dangerously low and his consciousness was fading.
Though her brother found the strength to snap her again out of her delirious shock, wheezing, "Go, go, go."
She didn't need more convincing.
Rin wound her forearms under the back of her brother's knees, heaving him into a better piggyback position, and then leaned forward on Samehada. The sword propelled ahead on the water, taking them as far away from the destroyed island as possible.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Zyouki City
Hot Water Country
On any other day, Haku would have found the show he was watching amusing if he wasn't feeling so much pressure to complete his mission.
"Granny Tsunade, c'mon," Mikoto whined, stumbling after Tsunade into a casino, sticking so close to the woman's side, Haku could see the tick pulsing on her brow. Haku trailed them to their table, sitting a fair distance away, yet close enough to hear them talking over the din of slot machines, drunk patrons and groaning loss-takers. "Big bro needs you. Didn't you hear anything I said? Orochimaru poisoned him-"
"I heard you," Tsunade groused, setting an elbow on the dealing table and pushing her dark shades up. "And I don't give a damn. Disrespectful brat needs to be taken down a peg." She proceeded to growl under her breath, so low Haku had to strain his ears to pick it up, "Who's the fool now?"
Mikoto didn't catch that last part, yet she groaned, shoulders low and head lolling back desperately, "But granny-"
Tsunade snapped at her, "I'm not your granny. I'm not a granny, so stop calling me that." Lifting a hand, a waiter shuffled hurriedly to her. "Sake." She poked her chin at Mikoto, who was clearly underage, and Haku swelled with irritation when Tsunade shamelessly grunted, "Put it on her tab."
Eying the Senju, the waiter hummed, visibly unsure of what to do, until he nodded curtly, "Yes, ma'am."
The man hurried away and Tsunade snapped at his retreat, "And make it snappy. We don't have all day."
Mikoto patted her pocket, exhaling a relieved breath when Haku saw her feel a slight bulge on the right side. She sighed, "Fine. Alright. I'll pay for your drink." It was the girl's turn to grumble, "I mean, dad stopped giving me my allowance when I became a ninja, but that's fine. Whatever. Let's use my hard-earned cash to fund your barhopping."
"Good," Tsunade scoffed, slumping heavier onto the table and waiting for the dealer to decide whether or not to add the Senju to the round of cards.
"Does that mean-"
"Doesn't mean anything." Tsunade interrupted Mikoto's hopeful words.
"But granny!"
"I told you, I'm not your granny, brat," Tsunade growled, a tired grating sound from her throat, as if her hangover refused to leave her. She snorted when the waiter provided her with a cup, collecting the entire jug of sake and shooing the man away. She tipped the jug, chugging a mouthful before swinging it down and smacking her lips, cringing at the sharp taste. She looked at the jug of alcohol, an impressed smirk on her face, "This is some good wine."
She looked at Mikoto, who wore an aghast expression, curled away and flicking her cerulean eyes at the supposed Legendary Medic.
Haku saw a glimmer of shame cross Tsunade's eyes, and he sat up, hopeful that she would see her conduct as discreditable to her legacy, only to slump back into his chair when the woman gave the girl a broad grin, a clear mask to hide her indignity, saying in a chipper tone, "Want some?" she snatched back the jug, as if Mikoto had made to touch it, scoffing, "As if."
On the same table, Yugao, Sai and Shizune shifted uncomfortably on their seats, pointedly avoiding Tsunade's eyes when she flicked her stare to them. Even the pig Shizune carried with her looked away.
"What?" her grin twitched at the corners, holding up the jug, "The wine's good."
She looked back to Mikoto, rearing back a little at the blatant disgust marring the girl's face.
Tsunade rose from her seat, offended, "What?!" she slammed the jug of sake on the table and silence rushed into their section of the casino. All eyes turned to her. Tsunade's attention, though, was entirely on Mikoto, staring down the girl and shouting, "You're looking down on me? Is that it? You think you're better than me?"
Mikoto looked at Tsunade from head to toe, lifting her eyes back up to Tsunade's and clicking her tongue, "Tch."
Tsunade lost it.
She picked the girl up by her collar and held her clear off the ground.
"You think you're better than me?" she exclaimed, holding strong to Mikoto as she bared her teeth, grabbing Tsunade's wrist with her good hand and glaring death at the Senju. "You have no idea what I've been through. You don't know half of what I've been through." Her heated words hushed the casino and they all stared at the grown woman holding the child off the ground by her collar. Haku didn't think the attention of the patrons was even a priority for Tsunade. "You and your brother, you're both the same."
Mikoto's face began to twist, angry. Her blue eyes darkened, reddening as her iris elongated. Her straight, long red hair began to part into nine parts, waving in the windless, airconditioned casino, and her canines sharpened, creepily descending prominently from her clenched teeth. Haku knew the signs too well, that his friend was struggling to bottle her anger.
Clearly seeing the signs of an impending explosion and caring nothing for them, Tsunade gnashed her teeth, snapping, "Condescending and inconsiderate-"
Yugao came around the table and gripped Tsunade's hand, the one holding Mikoto's collar. "I think that's enough, Lady Tsunade." Her face was stoic and her voice was stern, "Put her down. You both need to cool off."
Tsunade spotted the black-shirt-wearing security of the casino standing around the table, their arms crossed.
She scoffed, releasing Mikoto's collar. The girl dropped to her feet with a thump, closing her eyes and raggedly trying to get her breathing back under control.
Mikoto opened her eyes, still venomously vulpine and red, and looked at Tsunade. She bit her snarl, visibly pained to control her temper and trembling with each hot exhale.
The casino was tense.
No one was sure what would happen next.
Mikoto kept her eyes on Tsunade, who defiantly looked back with an upward turn of her chin, looking down on the girl. The people that could see noticed how Mikoto's vulpine red eyes normalized, shortening and rounding back to a cool shade of sky blue.
"Tch," She clicked her tongue and dusted off her shoulder, walking past Tsunade and pushing through the security guards.
Haku sighed, sagging into his chair.
Yugao stood by Tsunade, dark eyes narrowed on the woman as she settled back to her seat and picked up her jug of sake. Tsunade snorted, looking pleased with herself, "That's right."
Yugao took Mikoto's abandoned seat, shaking her head for the security to leave them alone. The terse men and women stayed a few seconds more, leaving when they were sure nothing more was going to happen.
She was about to speak, when she saw Mikoto storm back into the casino. The girl looked serene.
Haku wasn't deceived.
Mikoto poked the index finger of her left hand on Tsunade's elbow, "Oi, granny."
Tsunade grunted and dropped the jug from her lips, whipping her head to the girl and snapping, "I said, I'm not your granny."
Mikoto's blue eyes flicked red and vulpine, and she reared back her left fist and socked Tsunade clean across the jaw.
Yugao cursed, paling, "Oh no."
Tsunade's reaction was immediate.
She swore a hellish curse, bellowing, "Fuck. This."
"Shisho, no!"
Tsunade flicked Mikoto's forehead, and the girl was suddenly airborne, soaring over Zyouki's scenic skyline.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
One hour later
Zyouki Police Station
Holding Cells
Mikoto paced back and forth in her cell, gnawing on her left thumbnail and hissing at herself. Her cellmate, a scantily clad, malnourished woman in her late forties, peacefully nodded off in the corner. Kurama noticed that most of the people in Zyouki's holding cells were either prostitutes, their pimps, or drug addicts, likely ones that had somehow caused a row like Tsunade and Mikoto did.
Ninjas being arrested was rare.
In the cell opposite Mikoto's, Tsunade was lying on the bench, her left ankle crossed over her knee and her arms tucked under her head. She was alone in her cell.
Her eyes were closed, not asleep but calmer now, until they jumped open when Mikoto cursed again.
"Shit, shit, shit," biting her thumbnail and moaning under her breath, "Dad is going to murder me. Kami, he's going to murder me," her left hand went to her hair and tugged, weeping senselessly, "What am I going to do?"
Kurama would have hoped that an hour in the holding cell would have calmed its Jinchuriki down, but apparently, more time inside made the girl antsier.
It wasn't known why, but the Reaper Death Seal could be bypassed if Mikoto was pissed off enough. Minato placing an additional Nine Heavenly Shackles Seal, the seal that Kushina had formerly used, didn't change the situation, only that it made Kyuubi's seal restraints all the stronger.
Kurama grunted, mildly claustrophobic in its cell.
He grew tired of Mikoto's pacing, but Tsunade beat him to the punch.
"Will you calm down already?" she groused, keeping her eyes shut.
"You," Mikoto rounded on her, pushing against the bars of the cell in a vain attempt at reaching Tsunade inside hers. When she couldn't—Kurama predicted with an eyeroll—Mikoto growled, "This is all your fault."
"Quit your whining, brat," Tsunade coolly said, retorting, "Besides, you're the one that threw the first punch." She scoffed, a brief, snorting sound that made Tsunade smile, "Nice one, by the way. Almost knocked me off my feet."
Mikoto frowned, setting her brow against the cool bars of her cell, sliding down to her knees, "I wanted to…dislocate your jaw…"
"Ha!" Tsunade exclaimed with a short laugh, her eyes opening but still lying down. "And I was aiming for Konoha. I guess neither of us got what we wanted."
"Yeah…" Mikoto wilted, her blue eyes looking down.
After a pause, Tsunade called, "Oi, brat."
"Hm?"
"Was that the Kyuubi?"
Mikoto didn't move from her place. "Yeah."
"Is the…" Tsunade pushed, letting the question linger in the air.
"Seal weakening?" Mikoto finished, flicking her eyes up but her posture was still depressed. "The seal's fine, as far as I know. Dad checked before we left."
"Then what the hell was that back there?" the woman smirked, sweeping her feet to the ground and sitting up. She wore a strange expression, like a mix between active interest and visible boredom.
"All me," Mikoto sighed, "It happens when I get really mad. Dad says the same thing happened with mom, but I think he's just trying to make me feel better."
Tsunade snorted, "If you knew your mom, you'd know your dad wasn't lying." She looked up with a slight smile, a broad look of remembrance. "Kami damn it, Kushina was a firecracker. Hyperactive as hell. Like she wanted to do ten things at once but there weren't enough hours in the day for her to do them. She could be extremely gentle too, all of a sudden. She had the biggest heart on this planet and she wore that dan thing on her sleeve." Mikoto perked up a little, sitting back on her knees and casting her eyes to the other holding cell, her left hand curled around a bar of her cell. Tsunade brought her eyes down, her face dim with mourning. "You should have met her, kid." She leaned forward on her knees, perching an elbow on her knee and setting her chin on her palm, whispering conspiratorially, "Between you and me, I think she liked you most."
Mikoto's mood lifted and Tsunade winked, sitting back on the bench so that her back rested on the wall.
Kurama found a wiggling smile tingle at the corners of its mouth.
Yes, it agreed, Kushina was a wild one.
"Have you seen her pictures?" Tsunade asked.
"All of them," Mikoto jumped into her answer. She sniggered, "Even that awful, awkward one with her and dad going on their first date. Dad doesn't want to talk about that one."
The one where a young Minato and Kushina are dressed in their finest dining clothes. Their hands were laced together and their bodies faced each other but their faces and grins faced the camera. A long, harrowing, embarrassing story lingered behind that photo.
Tsunade laughed, "Yeah, I remember that one." She leaned forward again. "Kushina was living with me back then, so when Minato came to pick her up, he was sweating buckets." She snickered, Mikoto too. "His shoes were switched and he was fidgety as hell." She then conceded with a wince, "Given…yes…I might have…grilled him a bit too hard. But still, I needed to be sure he wasn't using Kushina."
"Really?" Mikoto laughed.
"Yeah, really." She smiled at the memory, adding, "Would you believe your mom wanted to go on her first date in a suit? A god. Damn. Suit!"
Mikoto gasped, eyebrows high into her hairline. "She did?"
"I could never predict that girl." Tsunade nodded, saying, "I doubt Minato would have cared either way, suit or no suit." Exhaling and admitting to Mikoto, "Those two were made for each other."
A sort of nice quiet settled between the two, realizing that they could tolerate the other more and that they might have had more in common than meets the eye.
Mikoto's head softly met the bars of her cell and her lips screwed to the side, contemplating whether or not to-
"Spit it out, brat," Tsunade spoke roughly. It wasn't a careless, uncaring sound, but Kurama could only assume that the Senju sensed Mikoto's next few words.
The girl licked her lips, slowly saying, "My brother…doesn't like…you…"
Kurama wondered about that too; for the first five years after being sealed into Mikoto, the tailed beast didn't have any awareness to observe its surroundings, primarily because, to a lesser extent, Mikoto too didn't have any awareness of her environment.
This loathing Naruto held for Tsunade was news to him.
Entertaining news, but news nonetheless.
For some time, Tsunade didn't say anything.
Mikoto chanced a look up and saw that the woman was sitting back on the bench again, her back on the wall and her eyes were closed.
"I suppose so," Tsunade finally said. She shook her head. "I don't like myself too. I…didn't like myself then, and I don't like who I am now."
"…What happened?" Mikoto slowly pressed, not wanting to push her luck on Tsunade's openness but also wanting to answer a question she, and Kurama, wanted to know.
"I was spiralling," Tsunade grunted, setting her hands on her knees and rubbing back and forth. A sign of her anxiousness, Kurama recalled from when it was sealed into Kushina. "Worse than now. I was in a bad place. Mentally." She opened her eyes, the corners of her lips dropping. "Your brother, I think he was five back then, found me in a bar at the redlight district. He might have been with someone, I'm not sure. I only remember him calling me disgraceful." She scoffed foully, crossing her arms and lifting her shoulders. "It wasn't too long after…your mom died…. I reacted the wrong way."
"You hit him," Mikoto deduced.
Tsunade gave her a half frown. "I'm not proud of it."
Mikoto searched the woman's downcast eyes. "But…you're sorry."
"I am," Tsunade nodded a little. "I regretted doing it the very second it happened. He didn't cry much at his mom's funeral…but after I hit him, he…" Her high shoulders lowered and her lips pursed tightly, unspeaking for a moment before she admitted, "I was just too proud to apologize at the time. And after all this time, I doubt he'd forgive me."
"He will," Mikoto promised, pressing her face between two bars of her cell. "Come back to Konoha and apologize properly. He'll forgive you."
"Are…you sure?"
Mikoto gave the woman a small smile. "Positive."
"Lady Tsunade, Mikoto Namikaze, you two made bail," the sheriff said stiffly, strolling to Tsunade's cell first. He jangled his keys into the cell's lock and snapped it to the right once, throwing open the door and stepping aside for the woman to exit. He locked the cell door after her and opened the cell for Mikoto, and the girl stumbled out gratefully. The sheriff motioned to the open door he had come from. "Head on over to the desk for processing. Damages have already been paid for by your Lord Hokage himself."
Kurama grinned at the chill that ran down Mikoto's entire being, frozen on the spot. All the colour drained from her, paling and shivering like a sickly creature.
"You two are lucky you're not banned from reentering Zyouki for all the trouble you caused."
"Yeah, yeah," Tsunade grunted, exiting the holding area and sweeping around to the desk, speaking to one of the officers there. She looked up around the policeman and saw a petrified Mikoto who hadn't yet left the holding area, smirking, "He's not here, brat."
The relief that ran down Mikoto's soul was almost euphoric. Her knees nearly buckled and her back wilted with a sigh.
They got their things—primarily Mikoto's weapons, her wallet, and the penknife Tsunade had hidden in the heel of her low shinobi heels—and left the station, Mikoto profusely apologizing as they exited.
Outside, Yugao gave the girl a sound whack on her head.
Mikoto whined petulantly, falling into another round of apologies, to Yugao and Shizune.
Shizune was just glad Mikoto was ok, though she gave the girl a sound scolding for doing something as rash as punching a Sannin.
No doubt Mikoto would have to face her father when she got back to Konoha.
She wasn't looking forward to it.
It was almost a relief when they were ambushed outside of Zyouki.
Authors Note
What do you think of this chapter?
How's the story going so far?
Let me know what you think, would you so kindly. Stay happy and stay safe, wherever you are in the world.
I'll see you when I see you.
Foy.
