Beekeeper kept his end of the bargain.
Injecting his healing antidote into the veins of Shino's captive with one bee sting, just as he'd promised.
And after closely watching the blushing color slowly return to her face, Shino was finally satisfied with the Bee Sage's work.
At last, following Beekeeper to the infinite orchards of beehives surrounding his honey farm.
"So, you and my dad go back a long time then, huh?" Shino tried to steer the Beekeeper into small talk, rounding back around to the question of why he'd wanted to kill Shino in the first place.
"Ah, yes...long before Shibi became a father, we had been good enemies to each other," Beekeeper nodded reverently, as casually as if he were describing an old comradeship like the one between Might Guy and Kakashi Hatake. "I was a fierce rival to your father. Our long battles ended in stalemate every time we fought. Surely, the very mention of my name makes him shudder? My reputation, after all, proceeds me."
"Actually, he doesn't talk about you much."
"What?"
The reply was dry and indignant, lacking all his heroic glory and long-winded speeches from before, as the beekeeper's shoulders tensed. Standing on edge as if his brain were bleeding profusely from the maddening sound of nails on a chalkboard.
"Never?...Not even a word?"
He turned around on the path to look back at Shino.
And even his Beekeeping mask appeared to darken as his fist constricted a little tighter.
"That petty bastard," he mumbled under his breath.
"How did you become enemies with my dad?" Shino asked.
"Hm?" Beekeeper seemed dazedly far-away, as if Shino had suddenly cut him off from his deep brooding contemplation. "Oh that...Let's see...why was that again?"
"You...don't remember?" Shino's brow arced down questionably.
"Well, after wandering almost 20 years in this fog, how much would you remember, I wonder? It's all just detail anyway," Beekeeper waved the young Aburame off dismissively, as he poured a generous portion of honey wine into a jar and corked it for his guest. "Some other time, hm? Until then, here's the best of my honey wine for your friend. A peace offering, for our misunderstanding today."
"Thanks so much," Shino told the beekeeper, taking the honey wine jar and reaching for his ryō pouch. "How much do I owe you?"
The question appeared to stump the Beekeeper, as he stood dumbfound over his beehives, filled with fermenting honey and rainwater collecting in bamboo nets.
"Money?" he chuckled. "I almost forgot how important money and material things are in the world out there. That's not something we care about here. Wealth means nothing to us in this village. Just take all the honey wine you want. I want nothing for it."
"Us?" Shino scanned the dark fog around him, lost for who else could be running this silent, isolated misty village. "There are others?"
"Other exiles like me who decided long ago that the world outside is no longer home to us," Beekeeper said. "We find this Shangri-La for many reasons. Exile. Rejection. Shame. A second chance. Missing-nin seeking refuge from being hunted by their villages, after abandoning their shinobi life. All committed to an existence of peace, safe from the never-ending cycle of hatred and violence in the ninja world."
Shino studied the eerie quiet of the fog. An endless gray void stretching in all directions without any sign of the path he'd walked in by.
And not for the last time, he wondered if staying the night at the honey farm was ever a good idea.
"My teammate will know I'm missing by now," he said to Beekeeper. "If you could just point me toward the road back, I'd be very grateful."
The beekeeper froze, silently studying Shino behind that indecipherable mask.
"You mean...you've lost your way back?"
"It seems my insects keep getting disoriented in this fog," Shino said. "if you could show me back to the place you found me, I can track my teammate from there."
"I see," the Beekeeper slowly realized. "It seems then...there's no way back for you."
"What do you mean?"
"The girl you carried in with you was always meant to find this place. I have been expecting her for a very long time," Beekeeper explained. "She is lost, as I am. My bees alerted me that she had crossed over the fog barrier, and I went looking for her to welcome her to our village. Only to find you two engaged in battle together. And so, I thought it was only an unfortunate accident that you followed her into this bamboo grove...But it seems you're one of the lost too...and now you're here to stay with us."
"Us?" Shino repeated again. "Where are the others in this village?"
"Here, of course. With you and me," the beekeeper answered distantly. "They are the fog, as you and me will soon be."
"That's impossible."
"And yet, here we are. You won't be leaving this place any time soon," Beekeeper replied. "Like I said, this bamboo grove is surrounded by a barrier for those who have lost hope in ever being found. Once you step inside, there is no way back. Try to leave and you'll only continue to wander through an endless fog. That's what this jutsu does."
"But if I found a path into this village, then there must be a way out."
"The way you came here no longer matters. The way you'll get out doesn't matter either. Unless you can break this jutsu, there is no path anywhere for you here," the beekeeper said. "The fog is your home now."
But how could that be?
Did the Beekeeper mean to make Shino a prisoner here all along, or did the Bee Master really think this jutsu couldn't be broken?
"Nothing is that absolute," Shino disagreed. "The reason is because any jutsu can be broken."
And Shino was determined to find the answer.
Sprinting into the fog, he attempted to retrace the path out of Sora-Ku where he'd been separated from Kiba.
But the faster he ran, the more disorienting the fog.
No matter what path Shino took through the bamboo grove, he ended up right back where he started with the Beekeeper.
And still refusing to accept the Beekeeper's damnation, Shino tucked the honeywine gourd safely under his arm, and stubbornly charged into the fog again.
"Scatter," he commanded his bugs to swarm out into all directions. "Kiba should have picked up my scent by now...Why hasn't he come looking for me yet?"
Of all the times to be forgotten by his teammate, why did it have to be this one?
Shino's bugs instantly darted back to him out of the gray haze, swarming around him dazed and mystified like a stormy night tsunami.
None of them managed to pick up Kiba's trail, or the road back outside the Sora-Ku forest.
'An unbreakable jutsu, huh? That's not possible,' Shino thought. 'That's because every Jutsu has a weakness. This one can't be any different...Beekeepers are notorious illusionists...He must know something more about this...Trapping me here must've been his plan all along.'
And shifting through his bag of tricks, Shino crouched on one knee, touching his fingers to the ground, "Insect Gathering Jutsu."
If his bugs couldn't map out the bamboo grove in this fog, maybe the native insects of the forest could tell him how to get out.
Within minutes, an army of mites, aphids, Mealy Bugs, and ants came crawling from all sides of the bamboo grove to meet Shino in his insect gathering circle.
But all in vain.
None of them could report to him any answers about how to break the jutsu.
They all echoed the same report back to him,
"No way out." "No sign of Kiba." "No path out of the forest." "No way out."
How could that be?
Hunting things down and finding people was Shino's specialty as a ninja.
How was it that he was now the one waiting to be found?
"Maybe it's a good thing Kiba isn't here," Shino thought. "He'd never shut up about this."
Because surely, Shino would never live it down.
"How is this possible?" Shino reassessed the contradicting nature of the fog. "How can this place be both a barrier...and still infinite? What kind of jutsu is this?"
"You're wasting your time," Beekeeper approached him from the fog again. "I told you it's hopeless."
"If this really is your jutsu," Shino challenged him. "Then you are the only one who can break it, right?"
"Fight me if you want to. It changes nothing. My jutsu can't be broken, not even by me," Beekeeper replied. "Not even if you kill me."
"Have you lost control of it then?" Shino asked. "Are you saying that not even you can leave this fog?"
"This mist contains a special component that makes people go astray. It feeds on people who are lost," the Beekeeper told him. "Like you, I have nothing anymore to go back to. The life of a shinobi is heavy with pain. I want nothing to do with the world out there. When I crafted this jutsu years ago, I wanted no one to find me until the time was right."
"Why did you choose to show yourself now?" Shino asked. "Were you trying to trap me here?"
"The girl is my student," Beekeeper answered. "Or at least, she would have been, had I not believed her to be dead all these years. I was waiting for her arrival. It was never my intention for you to fall into this fog with her."
"So, if you had the power to bring us in, what's stopping you from releasing us?"
"I do not have that answer," the Beekeeper said. "We come from different clans and different philosophies as shinobi. And yet, we are alike, you and I. We've both been lost for a very long time...Haven't you wondered, after all, why the fog chose you, and not your teammate, Kiba?"
Shino contemplated the Beekeeper's cryptic words, still finding no logical connection between himself and this mysterious fog.
"That can't be the only reason why this jutsu can't be broken," Shino persisted.
"It doesn't matter what I tell you. Ultimately, whatever answer you find to beating this fog, will be the right answer," the Beekeeper said, only puzzling Shino more. "Until then, you should be grateful to have a home like this, where you are forever protected from all the heartbreak, disappointment, and sadness in the outside world. You will finally know true peace here, free from the enslavement of politics or inutile shinobi wars...Or losing the ones you love most...Why would you ever want to go back to such a world?"
"And stay here in an existence without suffering?" Shino pondered the alternative. "Can that really be more meaningful than returning to my life out there?"
"You'll forget your old life," the beekeeper assured him. "The gift I offer you is one nobody can turn down. You should accept it, as it will be forced on you anyway. And you will thank me later for it."
"I'm not sure I can yet," Shino shook his head. "Heartbreak, disappointment, losing people... it may be painful, but does that really mean there's no meaning for me in that world?...Being truly happy can't mean just giving up on my life out there...even if my teammates' lives are so different from mine now."
"But where are all those loyal friends, I ask you?" Beekeeper challenged him. "Seems that while you're trapped here alone in this jutsu, your friends have already forgotten about you. What need do you have for teammates like that?"
"Even so, they are my friends," Shino insisted quietly. "Even if they have forgotten about me, I swore to never leave them behind. And so, I must go back."
"Why you would choose your friends over a life here without any suffering is beyond my understanding," the Beekeeper said. "Still...I never expected an Aburame like you to speak so selflessly. Perhaps there is hope for the world out there after all...And if there is hope, then there is a way to break this jutsu."
"So, you do know how to break it?"
"I may not have that answer, but you have given me hope that an answer might soon be found," Beekeeper said. "Perhaps...you were always meant to follow her into this fog."
"I'm sorry. I still don't understand what you mean by that."
"Aburame...All I can ask of you is this," Beekeeper trusted gravely in Shino. "Do not repeat the tragic mistakes of us who made them before you. Break this relentless cycle of revenge, and choose a different world to return to. And remember, above all else, that she is only lost, as you are...Her path back home is dangerous, if not impossible. You will need each other's strength to face the danger ahead. She will help you find a way back to your world, as you will help her find the courage back to hers."
"It seems this girl means a lot to you."
"Well...you're not the only one who has sworn a vow to an old friend," Beekeeper said quietly, a hint of melancholy hidden somewhere in his voice. "And it is now that I've finally decided how I will honor it."
Then he turned to leave his guest alone.
Allowing Shino to contemplate the Beekeeper's words, as he watched his host disappear into the fog again.
'It must be a day now since I've lost track of Kiba...If he hasn't noticed I'm gone yet, maybe time is different in here too,' Shino concluded. 'Which means...one day in this jutsu may only be minutes outside the bamboo forest...Meaning...'
And then Shino's stomach sank, realizing how many days might actually go by locked in this bug trap, before Kiba even realized he was missing.
Would anyone even take notice of his absence when he didn't show up for the wedding?
'How am I going to explain all of this to Hinata?'
