Naruto screamed in agony as his feet gave way beneath him! The sound only muffled by his face flying into the dirt! In less than a second the pain exploded up his calf. It all happened so fast that for a moment he thought it was just a sprain, but a quick look down showed red leaking fast over the forest floor.

He sucked in a deep breath through gritted teeth before speaking.

"What…. where-"

"-he popped out of that bush there, sliced your tendon open, and tried to jump into that log," Sakura told him plainly. Following her casually pointed finger he did indeed see a ridiculously hairy man, maybe four feet tall, twitching faintly on the floor with his head in a log and a familiar dagger lodged in his spine.

Sasuki wasted no time yanking the head free and slicing both ears off with mechanical precision. Naruto only managed to pull himself upright and get a hand over his spurting injury in the time this took. To her credit though, the killer's eyes did soften when they found his, she even kneeled down to be face to face with him.

"You can heal yourself too, right?"

"I can't not heal myself, it just happens automatically. It was actually quite inconvenient back at the mine," he joked dryly, sucking in another breath as the pain began to fade.

"How long?"

"I don't know, it was a deep cut, an hour or two?"

"Let's rest a bit then," she offered, taking a seat on the log, apparently unbothered by the earless corpse a couple of feet away. Naruto chose to face a different way as he propped up against one of the thicker trees. It was a surprise when his old friend put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, two gold, ten whole days of rest at Ayame's inn!" she offered with an uncertain smile.

His own smile was comforting, he even lay a hand on hers and squeezed.

"Yeah! Not bad for what, an hour of work?" the relief cast over her face almost distracted him from the horrible pain still radiating. Well, he'd get used to it, probably. Who knows, maybe it was a fluke that one actually managed to land a hit. Naruto tried desperately to maintain this optimism when they finally took back to their feet.

Sakura had been kind enough to lend him one of her javelins, which doubled as a spear and a walking stick in his arms.

"You should be using a spear anyway. It takes much less skill to use. Just have to duck and cower behind it when something dangerous charges,"

"Thanks, yeah, that's probably wise," he agreed, struggling to keep pace with the other two with his new walking stick as their trek over the uneven woodland terrain continued. Neither woman spoke, both intensely focused on watching their surroundings. An action that proved wise when a handful of small stone darts bounced harmlessly off Sakura's club.

The enormous woman wasted no time after making the parry, hurling one of her javelins into the tree where a garbled scream rang out, fading in strength fast. Naruto found himself wishing he had a crossbow just to put the poor guy out of his misery. Sakura certainly seemed to take her time pulling herself up into the foliage and doing… something that ended with a nauseating crunch.

Whatever it was it silenced the creature.

The relief that gave him was minimal compared to the worry at just how fast they'd found a second. It couldn't have been more than an hour or so, he could still barely use his foot! Just how many of the little bastards were out here? Was Sasuki sure they wouldn't come against them in all at once?

They were on their tenth kill before he was relatively confident in their safety.

And he'd only been stabbed two more times! Sakura took a few herself, but neither were immobilized, and with his powers stemming the bleeding almost immediately the little cuts didn't pose any serious danger.

Before nightfall they'd killed thirty of the fuckers, and even Naruto admitted his agreement with the plan. Though settling in for the night in these woods, he was having second thoughts once more. A forest was never really quiet, and without a blanket he had only the fire to keep the bugs away while he stood watch.

He volunteered to go first. Sakura had taken the most recent hit, a nasty jagged knife clean through her foot, and Sasuki actually admitted to being tired. Apparently, the mental stress of being on high alert for nine hours straight weighed on a person.

Did it speak poorly of his perception that he wasn't tired like that?

It certainly did that a fangfolk managed to land not two feet from him without him hearing the jump. Although in his defense the landing was quiet enough as to not wake either of his companions. Without thinking his hands shot up to grip her wrist, to hold it tight and keep her from swinging that blade around.

She tugged viciously but he was much stronger.

"Ssstop! Stop! Don't want to fight! Want to talk Feyfolk!" she was speaking in a hushed tone, almost a panicked one.

"FANGFOLK! WAKE UP!" he shouted without thinking, eyes already combing through the blackened treeline to see if there were more. It was then he was bitten hard on the hand, hard enough to bleed badly, and painful enough for him to lose his grip.

She dove backward onto a log, blade pointed in their direction, not that it would help protect her from the dagger Sasuki was poised to throw.

"Wait!" he shouted, halting this execution without a second to spare. Sasuki looked confused, but she did pause much to his relief. "She didn't attack me, she wanted to talk. Also, she knows I'm not human somehow and I'd really like to figure that out,"

"Smell wrong. You smell too much like human, humans smell like human but also smell like filth and farm or fish. You just smell like human," the little thing piped up, words rapid and light. Matching well the way her eyes frantically bounced between the three odd people there with her in the flickering firelight. She sucked in a breath before speking. "I'm willing to bargain fey folk, make a deal if you help me kill them,"

"Yeah either of these ladies could kill me pretty easily, even if I wanted to take you up on that,"

She made a noise of despair at that, then resumed bouncing her eyes around them. Her form remained tense, like a spring a second away from bouncing. At least Sasuki still had the knife poised, upside down with the long blade in her fingers.

"Should have just slit your throat blonde boy, could have killed them in their sleep easily!" she spat out, more to herself than anyone else. "You think you will leave this forest alive? After killing so many of the tribe? I was just attempt to speak! Wait until tribe comes in force!" she warned.

That widened Sasuki's eyes.

It also made Naruto purse his lips in sour vindication.

"Hang on! You said you wanted to talk yeah? Let's talk," he offered.

"Wanted to talk to you, about killing them. Wanted to kill you too but Fey always better left alone. So many of our hunters dead now! Our tribe weakened for years! Egg Eater tribe may even destroy us!"

"Egg Eaters are Fangfolk too?"

"What? Why? Yes," she rattled out.

"What if we help you destroy that tribe? I have powerful healing magic, we'd probably be able to do it without many casualties. We might even be able to help you set up somewhere near Ironhold, help protect you,"

That seemed to catch the feral woman's interest.

"We will kill many more of your tribesman if you attack us in force and we both know it. Alternatively, as long as you let us take the ears after a battle, we're happy to kill your enemies with you. This might even grow into a long, lucrative partnership," Sasuki added simply. Her voice lacked that edge of desperation that Naruto spoke in, like she was barely worried about the possibility of this 'attack'

The two women met eyes for perhaps a full minute.

Tsume broke the gaze first.

"It might,"

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