Rei stared at the murky brown surface of the lake, still rippling despite the icy buildup on the shoreline. "Not gonna lie; it looks like someone already captured it."

"What makes you say that?" Mangetsu asked, already slipping out of his jacket.

"Because it's in some kind of jar, I think."

Utakata was verifying Rei's every word. "Maybe it was some kind of attempt at destroying it, for someone who doesn't know about Tailed Beasts."

Mangetsu shrugged. "If they Sealed it in a jar and hid it where people were least likely to come upon it, they didn't do too terrible of a job. And it means that I won't need Kazan's vessel after all." His long-sleeved shirt followed his jacket, revealing an extremely white chest. Rei could already picture Koichi making a joke about it, had he been with them. "However, I admit that my excitement has dimmed a bit."

"I thought you'd be relieved that we found it on the first day," Utakata said.

"Relieved, yes." Mangetsu kept a tight grip on his sword, then became one with the lake, sliding into the water in liquid form. His disembodied voice rose back to them quietly. "But I fear that something is missing."

"Like what?" Rei asked, but she got no answer from the water. The lake stretched out nearly as far as her eyes could see, and the treeline across the way was just barely a speck in the distance. Mangetsu was over a mile away in no time at all, and his chakra disappeared from her sight. But the jar with the Sealed chakra inside remained on her radar, hovering deep beneath the waves, pulsating orange.

Utakata hadn't relaxed his posture at all. "This is too easy." He'd sent up several bubbles, and his eyes were on the sky now. "What were those Leaf Shinobi patrolling for? All the way out here? There's something important we're not seeing."

"Mangetsu knows this could be a trap, right?" Rei had lowered her fingers into the freezing water, feeling desperately for a trace of the swordsman's chakra.

"He's not one of the Seven for nothing." Utakata still hadn't taken his eyes off his bubbles above. "I don't see anything."

"Then it really could just be this easy."

"Doubtful."

Rei stood and turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees. No chakra signatures anywhere but at the bottom of the lake.

Mangetsu had been submerged for nearly three full minutes when Rei experienced the chakra explosion of the Six-Tailed Beast.

In the space of a single second, the chakra jar that she could so clearly sense disappeared. In its place was a fiery ball that shot upwards towards the surface, leaving behind a volcanic propulsion of bubbles that threatened to create a full-sized cyclone underwater. When the ball broke the surface, everything in Rei's line of sight flashed red, and she and Utakata were both thrown off their feet and into the air with the power of a hurricane. Rei slammed against a tree, cracking her head against the trunk, and her vision went black.

It could only have been for a spilt second.

What?

The creature that was materializing on the water's surface was huge, bigger than the Mizukage's Headquarters Building, and it looked unmistakably like a gigantic slug. The entire thing exuded an angry red sheen, its chakra flaring erratically, and Mangetsu was doing what he could to keep it from reaching the shore.

He was still merged with the water, but the top half of his body was corporeal, and he kind of looked like a king of the ocean, if Rei was honest with herself. He'd created a massive wave of lake water to rival the size of the giant slug, and equally large waves were forming on the other side of the beast, crashing against it in an attempt to extinguish its chakra.

Mangetsu was holding his crazy sword with his left hand, and in one smooth motion, he brought his hands together on the handles and swung at the creature. Mid-swing, the sword began to glow, pushing out more chakra than Mangetsu could possibly hold in his body. The deep blue glow, tangible chakra, lengthened into what Rei could only describe as a god-sized blade, and it probably would have decapitated the beast had one of its slimy tails not come down right on top of it.

Mangetsu recovered his hold on the sword and reared back for another swing.

A wet cough from Utakata drew Rei's eyes from the fight. He'd been thrown against a tree as well, but it looked like he'd suffered more than she had. He was trying to sit up, favoring his left arm, and a huge red mark was already purpling on the left side of his chin. His chakra flickered quickly, almost as if it was trying to keep from blowing out like a candle. He coughed again and a trickle of blood dropped from his mouth onto the back of his hand.

The lake itself was turning red, like it was reflecting the most furious nighttime sky. Mangetsu had landed several blows on the Six Tails, which Rei could only assume was why it had gotten a little smaller. Crap. She was supposed be doing her part.

Pushing herself to her feet, Rei made it about two steps before her head throbbed, blackening her vision anew. Okay. Okay. You can do this. She took a chakra-controlled step onto the water, reassuring herself that she still could do that, and took off running towards the Six Tails.

The water roiled and tossed brutally, and Rei was thrown off her feet before she was halfway to the battle. She caught herself on the surface, but she pushed herself back to her feet as soon as she possibly could. Holding her trembling hands before her face in shock, she inhaled shrilly through her teeth. Her skin was a vibrant pink, stripped, like a searing burn. A quick glance down told her that the soles of her boots were sizzling, being eaten away by whatever this monster had done to the water. She ran, eyes on Mangetsu.

She was still at least a hundred feet away when she began pulling at the Six Tails' chakra. It flooded her body with a feeling like boiling water, and she couldn't stop herself from screaming when it engulfed her. But she didn't stop pulling. The thing actually stopped battling Mangetsu and turned its face to her, its eye stalks twitching in her direction curiously.

Interesting.

The invasion of this new high-pitched voice in her head on top of everything else nearly sent Rei to her knees, but the memory of the burns on her hands kept her standing.

Mangetsu took advantage of the beast's distraction to level it with yet another blow from his massive chakra sword, and the thing shrank down to the size of a small house. "Rei!" Mangetsu shouted. He was manipulating the water, shoving the Sealing jar to her on a wave. "Do it!"

The water that dripped from the jar stung her already raw hands, but Rei clutched it tighter. She hadn't been through pain training for nothing. Okay. Okay. One hand kept a hold of the jar and the other tried desperately to form the handsigns that would call the beast back into the jar. Kohana… You knew I'd be able to do this, didn't you?

The density of the air changed all of a sudden, and Rei watched, excitement and relief ballooning in her chest, as the Six-Tailed Beast began to dematerialize into little red orbs that floated peacefully towards her and into the jar. When the last one was contained and Rei was certain no more were to follow, she whispered the last words of the incantation and shoved the hinged lid down, where it stuck like it had been welded shut.

We did it… I… I did it.

Before her exhaustion, her pain, could get the better of her, two freezing cold arms had caught her and spirited her back to shore on a wave. But instead of setting her down gently, Mangetsu dropped her on the ground and she skidded a few feet, holding the jar tight to her chest.

"Nice job," Mangetsu murmured, and Rei forced her head to the side. She had to blink twice to be sure she wasn't hallucinating.

Mangetsu had collapsed on his chest half-in-half-out of the water, no longer merged with it, naked, and his entire body was a fierce lobster-like red. Patches of skin on his arms and back and been completely worn away, exposing muscle tissue. His lips were cracked and even the whites of his eyes were violently bloodshot. As Rei watched, the natural creases in his elbows and fingers began to ooze blood.

Before she could speak, someone began to applaud slowly back in the treeline. "That was inspiring to watch. Really."

Mangetsu tried to push himself back into some kind of battle-ready stance, but he couldn't even get his arms under him. What he had just endured went so far beyond pain training.

Zane Sensei swaggered towards them, already pulling a kunai from the weapons pouch on his waist. "Our orders were to get you back alive, but it doesn't look like you're going to make it even if we Seal you." Crouching at Mangetsu's side, Zane Sensei slapped him hard on his ravaged back, like maybe a brother would. Mangetsu couldn't even cry out. "Where's the sword?"

Zane Sensei made to slap him again, and Rei pushed herself into a sitting position. "It's in the water! Stop!"

With a small nod, Zane Sensei directed a Shinobi Rei had never seen before to fetch it. The water was already regulating back to normal. "It's a shame, Mangetsu. You had so much promise. But there is no forgiveness for traitors."

Rei scrambled forward on bloodied, burning hands, trying to reach him with all her might, but slender arms of iron fastened themselves around her chest and pulled her upright. "Stop, Rei," Hina Sensei said. "It's no use."

With a tremendous amount of willpower, Mangetsu turned his devastated face to Rei, panic in his eyes. "Rei, Suigetsu—" Then Zane Sensei pierced the swordsman's throat with the tip of his kunai, letting him choke on his words, on his blood. Rei sobbed as she watched Mangetsu's light drain slowly, and Hina Sensei rocked her like a child.

The Mist Shinobi Sealed Mangetsu's body in a scroll, along with his sword. Rei couldn't see or sense Utakata anywhere.

"Put her under," Zane Sensei said. "You saw what she does. Probably killed Niko before she left."

Rei didn't even care that Hina Sensei was about to knock her out when the whir of a thrown kunai cut through the blood-scented air, burying itself deep in Hina Sensei's neck. The woman's embrace loosened and Rei stood on wobbly legs, bracing her wounded hands on the nearest tree.

The Mist Shinobi were shouting, looking for the source of the flying blades. When two more had fallen, Zane Sensei closed the distance between himself and Rei in a few long strides. He grabbed her around the waist and fit his other arm across her neck, pulling her back against his chest so tightly that she could barely breathe.

Pull. Her chakra didn't answer her. It rumbled in her chest, still fighting the intrusion of the Six Tails, and it ignored her summons completely.

"Ah, the sign of the weakest kind of man." The voice came from high in the trees, and Rei turned her eyes about wildly. "The kind that hides behind little girls."

"Show yourself, you Leaf bastard!" Zane Sensei barked, pulling Rei higher so that her feet were dangling above the ground. Pull.

I was right, the high-pitched voice of the Six Tails whispered into Rei's mind. You are interesting. You just need a push.

A feeling that reminded Rei of a key being turned in a lock clicked behind her eyes, and an odd sensation flooded her body. Like it wanted her to…push?

Zane Sensei screamed in agony, dropping her, and she hit the ground hard. Her head bounced off an exposed root, but she rolled over and kicked away from her teacher. He was clutching his chest, blood seeping through his fingers. What had the invisible Leaf man thrown that had pierced a blade-proof flak jacket?

Rei kicked harder, pushing herself backwards, but there was something sticking to her back, something stopping her from making it over a thin fallen tree. She looked over her shoulder, then immediately lost consciousness.

Was that a… was that one of my bones?