The ship to the Land of Fire was completely booked, but it was a simple matter to sneak tickets for passage out of people's pockets, Rei had come to find. With four in her possession, she had met back up with her group at the tea house, where she slipped into the civilian clothes that Kazan had arranged to have quickly delivered.
It seemed to physically pain Mangetsu to Seal his sword away in a scroll.
"That, too," Mangetsu said, pointing to the bubble pipe poking out of Utakata's new coat. With an eyeroll, Utakata relinquished it, allowing it to be stored. "Sure hope we don't need our weapons on the ship," he muttered.
"Anything can be a weapon," Sachio said, tugging a fur cap down over his hair. "And I'm sure there are some less conspicuous items on the ship we could use."
Even so, they each kept a Summoning Scroll on their hips, beneath their several layers of clothes.
The sun fell, the snow began to drift down more peacefully, and the barge began belching smoke, preparing for departure. A quick series of Substitution Jutsu got them all on board, and their tickets told them where they'd be bunking. Some tactful trading with other passengers got them all in the same room, and Rei claimed the upper bunk of the nearest pair of beds immediately.
The evening meal was a bland porridge the likes of which only the Academy or the orphanage would serve, but it was warm. Utakata had grabbed several servings from the main deck and brought them all back to the bedroom, where they were shielded from the wind, snow, and sea spray.
Mangetsu and Sachio continued to speak casually, talking about backgrounds and sharing differing techniques based on villages, but Utakata and Rei remained silent. The Land of Fire was massive, and they wouldn't be welcome there any more than they were currently welcome in the Land of Water.
The other residents of the bedroom began trickling in as night fell. The other four sets of bunkbeds filled quickly, and Mangetsu struck up a conversation with a couple of old men who apparently had been traveling back and forth between the nations for years. "I didn't think we'd even bother returning to the Leaf, but the winters here are too brutal for these old bones," the thinner of the two said.
"You're Shinobi?" Mangetsu asked politely. He was quite good at disguising the incredulity in his voice, Rei decided.
"Not likely, son." The larger man grinned broadly, showing a mouth almost devoid of teeth. "Ryujiro here and I own a cattle farm in the Leaf Village. Someone's gotta feed all those ninja!" He bellowed with laughter, and Ryujiro gave him a lightly poisonous look, one that Rei imagined was the look of a long-suffering spouse.
"At least we did, before you gave it over to Haigo and her horde of brats," Ryujiro muttered. "Hope the place is still standing when we get back." Rei couldn't suppress a little smile at their good-natured jibes.
"What brought you to the Land of Water?" Mangetsu asked, scraping the last of the porridge from his bowl.
"Eh, you're one of those sharky-guys!" Akio, the larger man, exclaimed. "In all the years we've been traveling across the ocean, I've never actually seen one of your type. What's the clan again?"
Rei and Utakata looked to Mangetsu in tandem. He grinned at the old men, showcasing his teeth. "There are several local clans with the trait, but mine in particular is called the Momochi clan. Pleased to meet you." He shook hands with both men before redirecting them back to the question. "What brings you to the Land of Water?"
The two exchanged a brief glance. "The Leaf wasn't a place we wanted to stay after the Uchiha massacre."
Sachio, who had been silent all this time, nodded in understanding. "Had it not been for my wife's family, we also would have left the village, most likely."
"Has there been any word on the killer?" Utakata asked, collecting all the empty dishes.
The men deferred to Sachio, who shook his head in negation. "Not to my knowledge. It's been months, but he disappeared into thin air, it seems. I admit, it shocked quite literally all of us. I had the boy pegged as a candidate for Hokage one day."
"The boy?" Rei asked. It seemed she was the only one who hadn't heard about this apparently momentous event.
"He was only about your age, I think," Akio said. "Just one night got up and killed every single member of his clan, the village's police force, and was gone before sunrise."
"But he left that little one," Ryujiro interjected.
"Right, right. He left one kid. But the rest of the Uchiha clan is gone now. Just the two of them. Anyway, after that, a lot of us regular folk got a little uncomfortable in the village, started taking vacations and trips if we were able. We gave our farm to our daughter, Haigo, and planned to stay away, but…" Akio shared a look with Ryujiro. "In spite of everything, we miss our home."
Rei almost got a little emotional out of sympathy for the men. But the Mist wasn't her home any more than anywhere else now. She already missed the handful of people she thought of as family, and knowing that she'd never see Kohana again twisted her throat. "I'm ready for bed," she murmured.
Many of their other roommates had already taken to their beds, and Rei burrowed under the blankets on her bunk as deeply as she could. Maybe that way no one would hear her cry.
Rei woke early the next morning to discover that Utakata was already awake, reading a book by the thin light shining through a near porthole. "Why are you already up?" Rei whispered as she slid down her bunk's ladder.
"On watch." He didn't even look at her.
After visiting the shabby shared restroom to wash up and change her clothes, she returned to the bedroom. The others were all starting to stir, so she didn't bother lowering her voice much. "Where did you get a book?" He gestured to a scroll sticking out of the pocket of his flak jacket, which he'd hung from the underside of the ladder leading up to her bed.
"I always carry a few with me."
Rei couldn't believe she hadn't thought of that. "I'll get some myself whenever we see civilization again."
"Don't get this one." Setting the open book down on his chest to mark the page, Utakata reached for his jacket.
"Why?" Rei snatched it quickly, though Utakata didn't try to stop her. "Is it that bad?"
"It's pretty bad. Tag, you're it." He left the bedroom, leaving Rei on watch as she introduced herself to the first novel of the Icha Icha series by one Jiraiya Monogatari.
By the time she'd reached page 3, she could feel her lip quirking upwards in revulsion at the second-hand cringe, but she kept reading. There were certain things that she actually found fascinating buried beneath the super-sugary dialogue.
The very first scene was a love scene, one that gave an amazing amount of detail about the two characters touching each other and how they felt when doing so. Hands on hips, mouths on necks, bodies touching, that kind of thing. But the part that Rei couldn't quite wrap her mind around was the way that the characters clearly enjoyed it.
Her heart slammed against her ribs out of nowhere as her mind played back images she'd rather forget.
Zane Sensei's hand on her neck, his lips on the back of her head.
Niko Sensei pulling her against his chest, thrusting against her. "Scream," he'd said.
Her gorge rose, and she threw herself out of Utakata's bed and raced out the door into the open air, lurching herself against the nearest railing and emptying the contents of her stomach into the ocean. She was mindless of the biting winter wind.
"Looks like someone hasn't got her sea legs yet," a man chortled from somewhere behind her. "Don't worry, sweetheart, it comes in time."
"Hey," Mangetsu said suddenly, warning her before he placed a hand on her shoulder. "It happens to the best of us." Rei nodded mutely. She needed something else to think about. People enjoyed touching one another like that. It was normal. She hadn't seen much of that in her life, but it had to be true. Children existed, didn't they? They all had to come from somewhere. Even now, a month later, Rei still hadn't quite gotten over her shock at learning how babies were made. Of course… some probably came from girls like those in the B-barracks. Those without a choice.
Her throat tightened again. That had almost been her.
"Come on." Mangetsu gestured back to the bedroom, taking a sip from his water bottle before placing it back in his hip holster. "We need to talk."
The bedroom was empty of legitimate passengers now, all of whom had departed for breakfast, Rei assumed. Utakata and Sachio were sitting across from one another on opposing bunks, and Mangetsu closed the door behind him when he'd ushered Rei inside. "Let's be quick. We don't know how long we have until they start coming back."
Rei took the spot next to Utakata, sitting as close to the foot of the bunk as possible. The three men gave her a series of questioning looks, but she acted like they hadn't and said, "I'm ready."
"…Okay." Mangetsu leaned forward, signaling the others to do as well so their voices wouldn't carry. Rei just stared, and he pressed his lips together for a moment before starting. "We're arriving in less than twenty-four hours. The shelter is how far away?"
"A little over a mile from the port," Sachio responded. "It'll take us no time to get there."
"Good. Since we'll have done nothing but rest on this boat, we'll plan to track the Six Tails right away using your bubble jutsu—" Mangetsu motioned to Utakata, "—and your kekkei genkai." When he gestured shortly to Rei, she offered a brief nod. "We don't know what form it'll be in, but we have to prepare for every eventuality."
In as few words as possible, the small squad laid out loose plans for tracking, cornering, attacking, and capturing the Six Tails with as many different contingencies as they could imagine. Sachio listened with great interest, interjecting here and there with advice as the one who knew the physical lay of the land.
"It can't have been in the Land of Fire for long," Sachio reasoned. "The Hokage would have directed that it be captured."
"I don't know," Utakata said. "It sounds like the Leaf has had more important things to deal with lately, especially with the police force eliminated."
After a brief pause, Sachio conceded. "You're not wrong."
"Sachio, what are the chances that we encounter Leaf Shinobi on this mission?" Mangetsu asked.
"I'd say pretty low. We've been kept close to the village since the massacre, or in larger cities around the nation. There aren't enough of us to spare for missions in the rural spots."
Rei's breath shuddered in her chest. She'd only ever learned about Tailed Beasts from the textbooks at the Academy, and then only in passing. Utakata had said she could absorb massive amounts of chakra with a touch, but that much? The thing would probably chew her up and spit her out as a puddle of human goo.
As the other inhabitants of the bedroom flitted in and out throughout the day, Rei tried to keep her mind occupied. It wasn't easy. The first thing that always wanted to weasel its way into her thoughts was the idea that Headmaster Iwa, Niko Sensei, and Koichi were on the run, but they were stuck in place at the safe house. Other foundation members were probably being tortured, unable to speak due to their Seals. Kisame was out there in the midst of it all, 'playing his part.'
The second night on board fell uneventfully, but the sun rose with the chaos that accompanies a ship docking at the destination port. Rei was a bit disappointed that the Land of Fire was still cold.
They checked in at the port with their false tickets, walked inconspicuously out of the tiny town of Asagao, and into the wilderness. "Hope port security is still that loose when we try to get back out with a Tailed Beast," Utakata muttered.
"Like you said earlier, boy." Sachio was leading the way through the snow drifts, and he glanced back. "They have more important things to deal with."
True to his statement the day before, Sachio's stronghold for Mist defectors was only about a mile from the port, but to an outsider, it might as well be in the center of absolute nowhere. Trees surrounded the shed-like building on all sides, and no obvious walkway had been created to reveal its location.
"It looks like an outhouse." Rei wasn't terribly impressed. After living in Headmaster Iwa's safe house for six months, the eight-by-eight shelter was less than she had been expecting.
"Well, I didn't have endless time on my hands, and I did it all myself, so you'll have to be at least a little bit grateful," Sachio quipped. "Let me show you around."
The tiny structure had a single wooden door (hanging off its hinges), no windows, and a shabby wooden floor that Rei was certain would give her splinters if she walked over it barefoot. She chuckled to herself at the thought. When had she gotten so spoiled?
There was a small table large enough for one, possibly two people, a single three-legged stool, a pot-bellied stove whose open shutter revealed an abandoned bird's nest, and a partially unraveled hammock folded over itself and hung on the wall. "I guess it could be a hunter's cabin," Utakata mused.
Totally disillusioned, Rei was prepared to accuse Sachio of not upholding his end of the bargain when the Leaf Shinobi leaned down, pushed aside a tattered red rug, and revealed a ramshackle trap door. "This place has been here since the First Great War," Sachio explained, pulling the trapdoor open. The wooden flap was shockingly silent when opened. Dark stone steps led down into absolute darkness. "After Lord Takeru asked me to secure a stronghold, I came across records of old shelters that had been used by non-Shinobi while the nations were at war. The ones on the outskirts of the nation have largely been abandoned, and this one was in complete disrepair." He began to descend into the darkness, and after a moment, a light below was ignited. "Are you coming down?"
Neither Utakata nor Mangetsu had any expression on their faces, but Mangetsu exhaled quickly and motioned them forwards. "I've got your backs."
Utakata took a moment to flatten a scroll on the ground and Summon back his weapons pouch and bubble pipe, securing them around his waist. Rei did the same, buckling The Bastard to her back.
After they had all entered the underground chamber, Mangetsu glanced around quickly before following and pulling the trapdoor shut behind him.
"No electricity, no plumbing," Sachio said, tilting a lit candle over another's brand new wick. "But it's virtually unknown. Unless a Sensory type happens to walk by, you'll be fine."
"That's no problem." Mangetsu glanced around, retrieved his sword from a scroll, and strapped it to his back as Rei had done. "We don't intend to be here long." Everyone took a moment to step outside and relieve themselves, double-check their supplies, change into their uniforms, and eat a food pill. "Sachio," Mangetsu said when they were all back above ground. "Can you arrange passage for us back to the Land of Water?"
"I can, but there likely won't be anything available for a few days."
"That's fine." Turning to his subordinates, Mangetsu offered up a smile. "Let's get going."