Post by Gracie-kun on Feb 5, 2012 10:43:43 GMT -7
A strange shift in the air made Sho abruptly alert where he sat at the low table in the lounging room. He looked towards the door. Mitsuzuka noticed the genin's tension and stopped to listen as well. They heard nothing. As quietly as he could, Sho activated his Byakugan.
The dagger that punched through the paper door flew a hair's breadth over Sho's scalp as he dropped onto his stomach. He rolled under the table as the knife impossibly turned straight down in a second attempt to pierce him. The rope attached to its end bent, suspended in the air. Sho popped out on the other side of the table and sprang backwards to stand between the self-operating dagger and the ouji. Mitsuzuka rose from his chair instinctively.
Sho narrowed his eyes as the knife retracted swiftly, following the straight lines of bent cord back through the hole in the door. There was a moment of silence. Then the door slid open.
A woman stepped inside the room lit by a single candle on the prince's desk. She was tall and lithe, obviously athletic but not grotesquely so. In fact, she was quite beautiful. Skin lightly tanned, figure hourglass at the torso and slim everywhere else, flyaway blond hair pulled into a stylish bun and eyes of silvery-gray. Those eyes crinkled merrily as she folded the rope and dagger neatly over her forearm, ready to use it again.
"Kagiwara-oujisama. It's been so long."
A Tale with Bite?
Nanami slid open the door to her lonely room, being the only occupant now that Botan and Megumi had left. She'd heard a few screams somewhere nearby so a kunai was in her fist.
Inari-kun should be taking his break, now, she remembered. Nanami furtively crossed the hallway to the door opposite her room. She slipped it open, one green eye peeking into the room. Both mats were folded neatly on the raised sleeping area and the bathroom door was open to darkness. The room was empty. She closed the door as quietly as she could, her heart pounding.
She wanted to go back for a flashlight, but she was afraid the light would alert the enemy that she was wandering around. She'd have to press on in the dark.
Nanami reached into her tool pouch, standing before the boys' room. She hooked the communicator to her head without taking her eyes off of her surroundings.
"Sensei? Murai-sensei?" She knew his communicator was on - she'd seen it hidden in his cloak collar a few times whenever they changed shifts. Nanami barely spoke above a whisper.
There was a small second of silence. Then, in a voice so low she could barely hear him in the deafening quiet, Murai said, /"Reigi-san's down. He's probably somewhere between the rooms and the prince's chambers. Where are you?"/
"The hallway where our rooms are. Inari-kun's not here. I don't know where the prince is being held, though."
/"Take that hallway until there's one to your left. Keep going, and when you come to the fourth right take it straight down. The prince's room is the fifth door to the left. If you hit a mural of geishas down the long hallway you've gone too far."/
"Are you coming in, too?" Nanami breathed.
/"I'm on my way to you now. Just find Reigi-san and I'll meet you there."/
"Osu."
Nanami crept softly down the hallway with timid steps. It was well past nightfall, and with even the servants to bed and most of the guards concentrated to the main halls and the rooms closest to the outside, all the lamps were out, cloaking the halls in darkness. The bright cream color of the walls helped adjust her frantic eyes to the blackness, and she could faintly make out the winding hallway ahead.
She'd just turned the corner when a human mass caught her eye and she ducked back behind the wall, barely stifling a yelp. The kunai shook in her hands. Images of a beastly creature with fangs and blood-red eyes danced before her own.
No. No, no, no. Stop it; you could really be facing an enemy. Be serious! Nanami took a quiet breath. Summoning all her courage - determining whoever was there hadn't seen her since no one was attacking her yet - Nanami peeked around the corner.
Her eyes grew huge. "Inari-kun!"
The blond boy was face-down on the carpet-runner. Nanami abandoned all caution and knelt beside him, turning him over. Her breath caught at the sight.
He was deathly-pale, his lips turning a disturbing blue color. Nanami's mind went blank with horror at the sight. She sat there for the longest time, just staring, Inari's head in her lap. She was petrified.
"He's breathing." Murai materialized out of nowhere across from Nanami, who'd clutched Inari to herself with alarm. The jonin swiftly but gently took Inari from her arms and set him on the carpet. He turned the boy's head away from him, and Murai's jaw tightened. "Got any plasma pills?" he murmured.
Nanami dug into her tool pouch, and she realized that she was a nervous wreck. She was trembling violently. She held up a few pills for her sensei to take.
Murai took them, but surprised her when he gave her hand a firm squeeze. His brown eyes were full of intense security. "I won't let anything happen, all right? To you or anyone else. You guys are my students, and no one will hurt you so long as I'm still alive. I'll protect you with my life. I promise."
His voice was so driven and sure that Nanami almost believed him. Murai turned away from her and crushed the plasma pills, funneling the powder with his hand into Inari's mouth. Then he took a strip of his cloak and placed it on the side of Inari's neck. "Keep pressure on that. Don't let up until you know the bleeding's stopped."
"You're going on alone," Nanami's voice was panic-stricken.
"Hyuga's probably fighting the murderer on his own right now. I'll give him some backup. You stay with Reigi-san and keep quiet. I'll radio in if I really need you."
"I can't just-"
"You will or your comrade bleeds out and dies," Murai snarled.
Nanami flinched, tears spilling over from her eyes. The fury in Murai's face cooled just a moment after its height, and he rubbed his eyes like he was getting a headache. "If you can carry him, you can come with," he finally relented.
Scrambling, the blond girl wrapped a sturdier bandage around Inari's neck for pressure and situated him on her back. It was hard - with his couple inches of height and few pounds of weight superior to hers', she shouldn't have been able to do it. But she was on her feet and able to move freely without much trouble. She thanked her lucky stars for having good chakra control.
Murai waited for her to get ready, watching mutely. Once she could go, they both took off down the hall to their final teammate's aid.
Sho bent and twisted and leaped around and under bars of hardened rope as the bound dagger raced to catch him with blade or cord, whichever came first. It was like a hellish game of twister - each time the kunai turned, the rope would follow, accurately marking its own path. After only a few twists, and Sho would find himself barely able to move, trapped in a cage of reinforced rope. His only relief was when the woman pulled back her weapon for a fresh assault.
She's running her chakra through the cord to make it move and suspend like that, Sho knew now. His Byakugan eyes studied the rope the woman now twirled alongside her, winding up to throw it again. Chakra was running through the rope, building up as she spun it. But that's way too much chakra for one person to put out without getting exhausted. She's got monstrous chakra capacity.
"You're pretty limber for a boy," the woman said, smiling. "Jumping around like a little monkey. It's kind of cute, actually."
He didn't respond, instead falling back into the Hyuga-style fighting stance. The woman used her free hand to wipe foreign blood from the corner of her mouth, licking it from her thumb. "The ones who struggle are always delicious," she grinned.
Mitsuzuka had silently backed to the corner nearest to his desk, eyes on the battle before him. As he pressed himself to the wall, his hand groped for the latch hidden in the wallpaper's design. He pulled it, and a hidden door whooshed open without a sound. Mitsuzuka would've gotten away unnoticed if he hadn't jostled a standing lamp in his haste to escape.
The woman's attention focused entirely on him as the lamp crashed to the floor with a loud clatter. Her eyes met the prince's for a split second. Then he dashed into the hidden passageway.
Sho attacked while she was distracted. "Hakke Kūshō (Eight Trigrams: Air Palm)!" He thrust his hand forward, ejecting a blast of chakra at the woman. She wasn't fooled - spinning nimbly out of the attack's path, she threw her roped dagger in that same motion to give it more power. Sho deflected the kunai with chakra-protected hands but realized his mistake too late. The rope coiled around his wrists, trapping them. He managed to slip one hand free before the woman wrenched back on the rope.
"Augh!" Sho's arm tore out of its socket, dislocating it completely. He crashed past the woman into the hall, taking the paper door with him. She untangled her rope from him with a light tug and ran for the hidden passage.
Fighting back the pain, Sho used his uninjured arm to hurl a shuriken at her back. The roped dagger reached up and swatted it away as if it were alive as she vanished through the doorway. Sho cursed to himself; the ouji had no chance, now.
Mitsuzuka hadn't been running for a minute before he heard the fast footfalls of a shinobi behind him. In the darkness he didn't bother to check who it was. The woman gave herself away willingly.
"You really think you can outrun me?" she jibed after him.
Wordlessly, he continued running as he untied the outer kimono of his attire. He shed the layer and let the red garment fly back. The woman ran into it and it draped harmlessly over her face. She laughed at the feeble attempt, pulling it off her head - in time to see the glowing paper tags pasted in the lining.
Mitsuzuka didn't look back as he grimly made the sign of the Tiger.
BOOOOM!
The explosion was so abrupt that Murai shoved Sho's arm back in place with too much force. The brown haired boy couldn't help but to scream in pain. Nanami looked up from where she was setting Inari carefully next to Sho. "Was that the murderer?"
"He drinks his victim's blood. Why would he destroy Kagiwara's body before he could get a drink?" Murai asked, explaining the theory away.
"She," Sho corrected, squeezing his eyes shut against the agony. "And it's not just blood she's drinking. She's somehow ingesting their chakra and using it as her own. The chakra levels in her are insane. She must have fed recently…." His words died when he saw the pale-white Inari lying beside him. "That bitch-!"
Murai grabbed his good shoulder before the boy could get up. "Don't even try. Anything else we need to know?"
"She uses a kunai attached to some cord to run chakra through. It's lightening quick and it hinders your movement after a few curves. It's like a third arm to her." Sho cringed as a wave of pain passed through him. "Better to dodge than deflect it," he grunted.
The jonin got to his feet. "Nanami," he ordered, running into the secret passageway.
She regretfully left Inari's side. "Take care of him." Sho gave her a nod as she left and used his uninjured arm to set Inari into a sitting position beside him. He blew an irritated sigh when the blond boy's head fell on his shoulder.
"Baka…." The shouting of castle guards resounded through the hall and Sho started yelling back for help.
Mitsuzuka leaned against an earthen mound, one of many that sprouted randomly in this particular chamber he'd run to. He panted and sweated to somehow catch his breath. He wasn't used to running so fast, but he didn't really have a choice. At least he was safe here.
The twang of wire alerted him - she'd survived the blast. Now thunks of shuriken and kunai burying themselves into packed-down dirt sounded repeatedly, but once it was over, there had been no cries of pain. Those hadn't gotten her, either.
"Ninja traps. Who would have thought you'd actually resort to this?" the woman mused, thoroughly surprised but in a pompous way. "Well, I'm impressed. It won't do you any good, though. I'm still going to kill you."
She looked about the dark, man-made dirt cave. Mitsuzuka had lit the torches along the wall so he could see, and the blond woman grinned at her surroundings. "Now what have you done here? Doesn't look like much of a safe room to me."
Mitsuzuka took one more deep breath. "It's not," he called out. Then he elbowed the giant dirt mound he leaned against.
Buzzing hit the air like a sudden rainstorm. The woman looked around in alarm as swarms of wasps poured out of the hives disguised as big piles of dirt. The irritated insects were of a lethal breed - the Land of Rivers was famous for them. A man was known to die of twenty stings. There were thousands emerging from the first hive alone.
"It's the deadliest room in my mansion," Mitsuzuka hollered. He dashed for the exit and was out of the room in three strides. He slammed the plank of wood down to lock the door and ran away from it.
The woman backed away as the river wasps targeted the only potential threat in the room. She snarled. "You bastard!" Concentrating more chakra into her weapon, she spun it around herself like a typhoon. Any wasp that was hit splattered on contact.
Mitsuzuka made his way to the final room before reaching ground level, half a mile away from the castle. This one was simple; empty and spacious with a trap door that was probably packed down with fifty pounds of snow. He didn't stop to rest; the prince pulled off his shirt so the sleeves wouldn't get in his way and grabbed a bucket of smelly liquid.
Just as he turned to face the door, it burst open, and the woman's bound kunai grazed Mitsuzuka's ear. He hurled the contents of the bucket, which splashed over her. But she was a force of nature. The kunai wrapped the cord around Mitsuzuka's throat and he dropped the empty bucket to pry it off. The woman slammed into him, driving him all the way into the wall across from the door.
Her gray eyes were burning with anger, wet blond hair sticking to her face. "No more tricks, you son of a bitch," she hissed.
Mitsuzuka bit down on something with a crunch, and he spat the activated ember at her forehead. She burst into flame in the most glorious fashion. The woman screamed and the kunai was loosened enough that Mitsuzuka could slip out of it. He almost ran away, but she caught his wrist.
The woman sank chakra-glowing teeth into his forearm. Mitsuzuka howled suffering, knees buckling as his limbs lost all feeling. Somehow, though, he could still feel that terrible pain, and how the blood was being gulped right out of his veins. The blond woman clutched his arm to her mouth fervently, taking long draughts of his blood.
Then her eyes widened. "KYAAA!" Her shriek practically shook the cave. She dropped him, Mitsuzuka jostled by the merciless hard-packed floor. The woman was grasping her throat, eyes bulging. "You…! What did you do?" she caterwauled.
"When an heir to the daimyo name is born in the Land of Rivers, his parents immediately start giving him doses of the water wasp's venom. My blood's more poisonous than a belcheri sea snake's toxins," Mitsuzuka panted, nursing his arm, which was bleeding profusely. His green eyes glared with unabashed defiance at the woman. "I will one day be the daimyo of a nation between two shinobi countries with no ninja army of its own. What the fuck did you expect?" he snarled.
The woman seemed to shudder and she doubled over with pain. Black blood poured from her mouth as she induced vomiting to get the poison out of her system. Mitsuzuka could do nothing but watch, losing blood by the second. Finally, the woman stood straight again. Shakily, but still standing. She wiped her mouth with her bare forearm, gray eyes tight on the ouji.
"You…You don't remember me, do you?" she growled.
Mitsuzuka narrowed his eyes and said nothing.
She made an animalistic sound with her throat, face pugnacious. "That's just fine. There are a million other ways to kill you!" She started to run towards the prince-
-only to be halted in her tracks. The woman shook with strain to no avail; she really couldn't move. Her shadow had darkened and stretched all the way back to where Nanami knelt in the doorway, making a handsign. Nanami rose to her feet and the woman copied her tremulously. "Kagemane complete," Nanami said, solemn.
Murai bolted past the trapped woman to Mitsuzuka's side. "Eat this and put pressure on that," he ordered, handing him a plasma pill and pressing a bandage pad onto the bite in the prince's arm.
The woman was making ferocious sounds of rage. "You rats! Let go of me. That heartless wreck deserves a death one thousand times the one I'm going to give him!"
"You honestly think we'd let you go?" Nanami asked, incredulous. "Like hell! We've sworn to protect Kagiwara-ouji and that's just what we're going to do."
"Kagiwara shouldn't be allowed protection!"
"What's this girl's deal?" Murai muttered to Mitsuzuka. The ouji shook his head.
"You've got me."
The blond woman bit back a string of curse words she would've like to call Mitsuzuka. Instead, she somehow calmed down a little. "…My name is Mitsui Kaoru. I'm a rogue ninja from the Hidden Grass Village. I only dropped out a few years ago, after this spoiled brat ruined my life," she hissed with a quick glare at the prince.
Nanami looked utterly confused. "How could Lord Kagiwara have ruined your life?" He doesn't seem that heartless to me.
Kaoru clenched her jaw as if the memory only brought her pain. "I was a chunin back in my village. I was the fastest, the strongest - no one could beat me. In my youth I thought it was great. I could toss those men around like they weighed nothing. I thought I was happy. But then I started having desires to be with someone, to settle down, maybe even quit being a shinobi and start a family. Then my days of humiliating the men of my village came back to haunt me. They were all either scared or disgusted with how strong I was. No one would have me. I was going to be an old maid.
"Then I got a mission to escort a daimyo's heir from his vacation home back to Kuwa no Kuni. It was Kagiwara. He was only sixteen then, but he was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen. I loved him instantly. I was so enthralled I even got up the courage to ask him if I could see him again after he was safely at home. And do you know what he did? He rejected me. Flat-out, callously rejected me."
The blond woman clenched her fist, the only motion allowed in her since she was trapped with Kagemane. "I'd been rejected before, but always for the same thing. It'd always been that I wasn't feminine, or that I was too brazen. I was too strong to be a housewife! But not Kagiwara! No. He tore a new jagged cut into my heart that day by rejecting me not for how I acted or how I looked; he rejected me because of who I am. Because of what I was born as!" Kaoru sobbed.
Murai stared at her tears flatly. "Maybe he rejected you because you're a crazy blood-sucking bitch." Nanami looked at her sensei with alarm but the words were already spoken. The genin could feel the bonds of her Kagemane bursting.
She'll break free any second!
"So I left Kusagakure no Sato and decided to destroy the object of my hatred. But not right away. No. You had to suffer first. So I started with some lower-class nobles, made it into a serial killing spree." Kaoru grinned viciously, still crying. "I made sure I killed that Hiraga Masahiro just before I got to you. Just to make sure you were thoroughly in pieces when I came for you," she growled.
Mitsuzuka's green eyes grew bright with intense anguish and fury. Kaoru could only laugh at the sight. The tears staining her cheeks and shining in her eyes only made her look deranged.
Suddenly, the Kagemane snapped completely, making Nanami yelp and shield her eyes at the blast of chakra that had broken her technique. Kaoru ran straight at Mitsuzuka, still sitting helplessly on the floor. Murai crouched in front of him protectively, ready. Kaoru's pupils were retracted to tiny pinpricks.
"Now I'll take your heart and crush it in my own two hands! Kagiwara!" she screeched.
Nanami quickly ran after Kaoru, retrieving shuriken from the sheath on her thigh. She hurtled them at the crazed woman but that bound dagger deflected each one. Now she stopped, turning on Nanami, who scrambled to stop herself from getting closer.
Kaoru grinned maliciously. She'd totally lost it. "You want to die first, huh!" She threw her chakra-enhanced weapon right for Nanami. The girl's green eyes widened in alarm.
There's no way I can dodge that thing! She grabbed a kunai from her pouch and stood in a feeble attempt to deflect the blade.
Suddenly, it went spinning to the left, glancing off of a shard of glass. Murai was behind Kaoru with twin chakra tou (chakra blades - like Asuma's), about to pierce the back of her head with them.
Kaoru turned immediately and grabbed him by the throat, throwing herself into him so she slammed him into the stone wall with her body. He tried to use the blades on her again but she knocked them from his grasp.
"Murai-sensei!" Nanami didn't have time to run to him when the rope and kunai twirled and snapped tight around her, pinning her limbs to her body. She fell without resistance, yelping painfully.
The blond woman looked at Murai's scowling face with a surreptitious one. "That blond boy was cute, and the brunette wasn't half bad, but I never really liked redheads. They're inconceivably ugly," she mused.
"You're breaking my heart," Murai grunted sarcastically.
"Don't be so sensitive. I'm sure you get it a lot."
Mitsuzuka struggled to his feet and hurried over to Nanami, who was thrashing to escape. The prince barely touched it when he drew back his hand with a wince. The rope was emanating chakra anywhere that wasn't touching Nanami. Any outside help was out of the question. Nanami's eyes were trained fearfully on her sensei as Kaoru grabbed a handful of his hair and wrenched his head to one side.
"However, chakra is chakra, I guess," Kaoru mused, using her other hand to unsnap the cloak from around his shoulders and unzipping his flak vest. Murai was already paralyzed and couldn't stop her if he wanted to. "Really, this is the best way to replenish your chakra - drinking it right out of your enemy. Though, straight chakra would hurt like hell going down. It'd destroy your insides in minutes. But, if you mix it with the person's blood, it makes for a tasty chaser. And the best part is you can't move through the whole thing - I'm sending chakra into your body that blocks your nervous system from giving orders to your limbs right now. Of course, not enough to stave off pain."
One had to give him credit: there wasn't a single not of fear in the jonin's voice. "Are you gonna kill me or kiss me?"
Kaoru smiled seductively and leaned even closer to him so their lips were almost touching. "I guess a freebee wouldn't hurt."
Nanami's face turned beet-red as the blond woman started kissing her sensei. She gaped in horror and rage. She's…! Oh hell no!
"I wouldn't have done that if I were you," Murai panted as Kaoru broke from him. "That was my first kiss, and the girl set on marrying me is going to be extremely pissed."
Kaoru laughed once, pulling Murai's black shirt to make more room for her teeth. "Your girl isn't here to save you."
Murai smiled ruefully. "Nice knowing you."
It seemed as though there was a split second where Nanami's consciousness had failed her. One second, she was screaming her sensei's name with terror, watching as Kaoru bent to sink her chakra-enhanced teeth into his throat. The next, Kaoru was the one screaming as a spray of blood spurted diagonally across her chest.
Botan crouched in front of Murai, whose expression was unreadable, his hand on his neck. The short sword in her hand dripped blood onto the floor. How she'd gotten between Murai and Kaoru, how she'd been able to get past Kaoru's defenses, how she'd even been able to appear so suddenly, Nanami had no clue. But from the look on Botan's face, the blond girl knew one thing:
The look on Botan's face wasn't anger. It was inconsolable, merciless wrath.
"How dare you!" Botan roared at Kaoru.
The blond woman was grasping at her wound, which bled dark and stained her already-ruined yellow shirt. Kaoru's gray eyes were wide, mouth gaping, in shock of what had just happened. She probably hadn't even registered the pain despite her scream.
That didn't stop Botan in the slightest. She came at Kaoru with the unmitigated fury of a hurricane, swiping her short sword to cut into the blond woman. Kaoru had enough sense left to dodge but she could barely even do that. Something was wrong with her. She looked like she was trying to speak but couldn't. I've been poisoned? How...! A quick glance at Murai and Kaoru knew - clear blue stained the saliva smeared at the corner of his mouth. He'd transferred a poison into her when she'd kissed him. No!
Botan stopped swinging only to stretch her free hand out. "Sen'eijashu (Striking Shadow Snakes)!" Serpants wriggled their way out of the short sleeve of her flak vest and launched fang-first at Kaoru, slinging around her and squeezing her limbs to her sides. Kaoru stumbled and fell to her knees, gasping at the fire coursing through her veins from the poison. Finally, Kaoru couldn't dodge. Botan drove her sword straight into Kaoru's heart.
The rope trapping Nanami slackened, the chakra fading as Kaoru crashed limply to the floor. Nanami scrambled out of her bindings and stood by Mitsuzuka, who was just as stricken to see Botan as she was. The silver haired beauty wrenched her short sword from the corpse's chest as the snakes dissipated into smoke, expression still livid.
"Nobody hurts my Nichi-kun…."
The rest of the night was spent getting Mitsuzuka back into the castle and calming the clamor the castle guardsmen had created while trying to find the source of the explosion from earlier. Once the prince was accounted for and safe, they seemed to calm quite easily. Mitsuzuka, Sho, and Inari were taken for medical treatment but Nanami and Murai were barely injured. Nanami didn't even have a scratch.
"Bo-sensei!" Team Five rushed into the hospital room within the castle where everyone had gathered to see the wounded. Pakkun had led them there, Naoto and Kumamichi looking more than distressed. "What happened? You just- you disappeared out of nowhere!"
Botan smiled sweetly - though, Nanami wasn't sure if she could ever look at it as a sweet one again - and hung herself onto Murai. "Everything's fine! I just had to help my beloved Nichi-oujikun," she chirped happily.
Naoto looked totally lost. "But- you vanished. Did you teleport here?" He doubted it - that was some pretty high-level jutsu for someone so young.
"Don't you get it? I'm Nichi-kun's second summoning!" Botan peeled the band-aid off of Murai's neck, revealing two puncture holes over the blue insignia tattooed to his skin. "If his blood gets on this mark, I'm automatically summoned to him. That way, I can always protect my sweet Nichi-kun~" She nuzzled up to the tattoo and Murai stood there and took it wordlessly. Though, his face was growing increasingly annoyed.
Kumamichi blinked. "That's…a little creepy."
"A little?" Megumi scoffed. "It's completely obsessive."
"But who was the one murdering the noblemen?" Naoto asked.
"A former Grass kunoichi," Murai stated blandly. "She got angry that the prince rejected her and went on a killing spree. She was using that blood-sucking guise to cover that she was actually draining chakra from her victims. Apparently, according to Reigi-san, if you could hurt yourself while she was draining you then she'd feel that pain too, and she'd detach. Guess it's too late to inform anybody, now, though. She's dead."
Kumamichi wilted with a broken expression. "You mean we missed the vampire? And it was a girl? Was she hot?" Naoto shook his head wearily at his younger teammate while Megumi ignored him completely.
Mitsuzuka kept glancing at the sleeping, pale Inari, eyes clouded with guilt. Nanami meanwhile sat between Inari's and Sho's beds, holding the former's hand since he was again unconscious. Her eyes were glued to her feet - anything was better than watching Murai being held by another girl.
It'd taken three days for the teams to get back on the road to Konoha again, mainly because of Inari. So much blood had been drained from him that he'd been too weak to lift his head when he first woke up. Luckily, though, he was back to his old optimistic self when it was time to finally leave.
The two teams stood outside of Kagiwara Castle, Mitsuzuka seeing them off.
"Sorry that my father wasn't here to thank you," Mitsuzuka murmured with a polite bow. The Leaf ninja bowed back out of forced manners. "Though, I'm sure his recommendations for the Leaf will be stellar when he hears the news."
"Thanks for hiring us," Botan said, smiling wide. Murai made a mutual noise of agreement. She gave him a sly look and attack-hugged him again, much to his annoyance. Nanami looked sharply away from the scene.
Kumamichi leaned a little to whisper to Naoto. "It's like a domino effect." The Akimichi boy and even Myu nodded.
"Ah, before you leave," Mitsuzuka ventured, suddenly looking a little unsure. Then he gestured with his hand. "Inari-san, I'd like to talk to you."
The blond boy blinked. "O-Oh, all right," he said, hurrying to the prince's side as his Leaf comrades carried on slowly, so he could catch up in a minute. Inari was uneasy. "Kagiwara-oujisama, if this is about how useless I was when you were being attacked, I already know-"
Mitsuzuka shook his head. "No, it's not that. You couldn't help that." He blew a sigh. "The night of the attack, just before you were going on break, you and your brown haired teammate had an argument outside my room. I couldn't help but overhear it."
Inari's ears burned and he ducked his head in shame. "I'm sorry, Kagiwara-oujisama. I shouldn't have been so loud."
"The walls are literally paper-thin, so don't worry about it. But back there you were trying to convince your teammate to let me help in the investigation, to ease my suffering. It wasn't your duty to mend a broken heart but you put your whole being into doing it anyway. I really must thank you for that. You're one of the few people I know who put their hearts before their heads."
Grinning sheepishly, Inari didn't have it in him to admit that he'd abandoned the cause as soon as he'd realized it was based on revenge. Instead, he waved it off. "It's just what I do. Besides, you've already repaid my by keeping me company while I've been stuck in bed for the past three days. We're even." He bowed to the prince, but stopped as he was turning to leave. "Oh yeah, there was something that's been bugging me for a while now."
"What's that?"
"Well, when that vampire-lady finally dropped me, she whispered something weird. She said, 'You'll die just like that last lover of Kagiwara's'." Inari scratched his head and squinted. "It was pretty dark in the hallway so she might have mistaken me for a girl…." Before he could laugh it off as some silly trick of his imagination, he saw the look on Mitsuzuka's face.
"Mitsui-san had a grudge against me because I rejected her, like I've rejected all the other women. But I wasn't completely honest when I told you my reasons." Mitsuzuka glanced away from Inari, blushing. "Hiraga Masahiro was more than my best friend. He was my lover."
Inari's mouth made a little 'o' while his blue eyes ballooned.
Mitsuzuka continued, "Of course someday I will marry a woman, because it is correct and it's what's expected of me. But…I'll never be able to love the one I marry, not completely. My desire for men would get in the way of that."
Now Inari was remembering all those times spent alone with Mitsuzuka, those strange moments where he'd stare at the blond boy too long, how comfortable he was with talking to him when the prince vehemently rejected any contact with females…. Inari's face went bright red.
The prince noticed and chuckled, tousling Inari's hair. "It's fine; you're too young for me." Then he stopped, green eyes gliding over Inari from head to toe. He looked appeased. "Come back in a few years."
Nanami turned back when she heard Inari jogging up to them. "What did Ouji-sama talk about?" she asked innocently.
Inari strode quickly so he was soon walking well ahead of his team, looking straight ahead, skin tinged scarlet. His voice came out as a squeak of fright: "The future of my sexuality."
Mitsuzuka shut the door to his chambers quietly. He was exhausted and wanted to get some sleep. Running a country was turning out to be a very hindering task.
"You look pleased with yourself." A figure in a black hooded cloak materialized like a mirage seated at the low table. Mitsuzuka almost hurried to find an alarm - but he saw the hooded teen and relaxed.
"Nice of you to show up. Where have you been?" Mitsuzuka asked.
The hooded teen rested his black sword on the table. "I heard about your run-in with trouble. Heard you gave the murderer a run for her money."
The ouji settled across the table from the swordsman, not even glancing at the dark weapon. "Everything you taught me really paid off. I was able to survive until help arrived. That idea of actually leading her down into the passageway was genius."
"So everything worked out in the end. Good. Sakage-sama was worried he'd lost a valuable ally. I was just coming back to check on you, but you're doing very well."
Mitsuzuka narrowed his eyes at the swordsman. "You're chattier than usual."
"I normally am after a hit."
"What hit?"
"It was nothing of great importance, Daimyo-sama," the swordsman mused, stressing the title.
The ouji's - daimyo's - green eyes grew round. "You did it? You actually killed him?"
"And no one will suspect it was anyone but the vampire-woman. Blood drained, in bed, and it was just on her way between here and the last crime scene's. Not a single trace of evidence left behind. You can take your seat as daimyo of the Land of Rivers free of suspicion of patricide - if you've agreed there should be an alliance with Kuwa and Kage." And there it was. The catch. Mitsuzuka gritted his teeth.
"…I trust you, Uzumaki-san. You're a very honest man. But is your lord worth trusting? I've heard terrible things about your organization. Will my country truly be safe? Can I trust the Sakage to guarantee that?"
The swordsman grew quiet, his hood making his whole face invisible to shadow. He was silent for a long time. Then he said, "If I were in your position, Kagiwara-sama, I wouldn't reject the offer."
Mitsuzuka nodded his head grimly. "I see. It's a bitter pill, but if it saves my country, I'll do it." He shook the swordsman's hand with a firm grasp. "Let establishing your village here make my nation great again."
The dagger that punched through the paper door flew a hair's breadth over Sho's scalp as he dropped onto his stomach. He rolled under the table as the knife impossibly turned straight down in a second attempt to pierce him. The rope attached to its end bent, suspended in the air. Sho popped out on the other side of the table and sprang backwards to stand between the self-operating dagger and the ouji. Mitsuzuka rose from his chair instinctively.
Sho narrowed his eyes as the knife retracted swiftly, following the straight lines of bent cord back through the hole in the door. There was a moment of silence. Then the door slid open.
A woman stepped inside the room lit by a single candle on the prince's desk. She was tall and lithe, obviously athletic but not grotesquely so. In fact, she was quite beautiful. Skin lightly tanned, figure hourglass at the torso and slim everywhere else, flyaway blond hair pulled into a stylish bun and eyes of silvery-gray. Those eyes crinkled merrily as she folded the rope and dagger neatly over her forearm, ready to use it again.
"Kagiwara-oujisama. It's been so long."
A Tale with Bite?
Nanami slid open the door to her lonely room, being the only occupant now that Botan and Megumi had left. She'd heard a few screams somewhere nearby so a kunai was in her fist.
Inari-kun should be taking his break, now, she remembered. Nanami furtively crossed the hallway to the door opposite her room. She slipped it open, one green eye peeking into the room. Both mats were folded neatly on the raised sleeping area and the bathroom door was open to darkness. The room was empty. She closed the door as quietly as she could, her heart pounding.
She wanted to go back for a flashlight, but she was afraid the light would alert the enemy that she was wandering around. She'd have to press on in the dark.
Nanami reached into her tool pouch, standing before the boys' room. She hooked the communicator to her head without taking her eyes off of her surroundings.
"Sensei? Murai-sensei?" She knew his communicator was on - she'd seen it hidden in his cloak collar a few times whenever they changed shifts. Nanami barely spoke above a whisper.
There was a small second of silence. Then, in a voice so low she could barely hear him in the deafening quiet, Murai said, /"Reigi-san's down. He's probably somewhere between the rooms and the prince's chambers. Where are you?"/
"The hallway where our rooms are. Inari-kun's not here. I don't know where the prince is being held, though."
/"Take that hallway until there's one to your left. Keep going, and when you come to the fourth right take it straight down. The prince's room is the fifth door to the left. If you hit a mural of geishas down the long hallway you've gone too far."/
"Are you coming in, too?" Nanami breathed.
/"I'm on my way to you now. Just find Reigi-san and I'll meet you there."/
"Osu."
Nanami crept softly down the hallway with timid steps. It was well past nightfall, and with even the servants to bed and most of the guards concentrated to the main halls and the rooms closest to the outside, all the lamps were out, cloaking the halls in darkness. The bright cream color of the walls helped adjust her frantic eyes to the blackness, and she could faintly make out the winding hallway ahead.
She'd just turned the corner when a human mass caught her eye and she ducked back behind the wall, barely stifling a yelp. The kunai shook in her hands. Images of a beastly creature with fangs and blood-red eyes danced before her own.
No. No, no, no. Stop it; you could really be facing an enemy. Be serious! Nanami took a quiet breath. Summoning all her courage - determining whoever was there hadn't seen her since no one was attacking her yet - Nanami peeked around the corner.
Her eyes grew huge. "Inari-kun!"
The blond boy was face-down on the carpet-runner. Nanami abandoned all caution and knelt beside him, turning him over. Her breath caught at the sight.
He was deathly-pale, his lips turning a disturbing blue color. Nanami's mind went blank with horror at the sight. She sat there for the longest time, just staring, Inari's head in her lap. She was petrified.
"He's breathing." Murai materialized out of nowhere across from Nanami, who'd clutched Inari to herself with alarm. The jonin swiftly but gently took Inari from her arms and set him on the carpet. He turned the boy's head away from him, and Murai's jaw tightened. "Got any plasma pills?" he murmured.
Nanami dug into her tool pouch, and she realized that she was a nervous wreck. She was trembling violently. She held up a few pills for her sensei to take.
Murai took them, but surprised her when he gave her hand a firm squeeze. His brown eyes were full of intense security. "I won't let anything happen, all right? To you or anyone else. You guys are my students, and no one will hurt you so long as I'm still alive. I'll protect you with my life. I promise."
His voice was so driven and sure that Nanami almost believed him. Murai turned away from her and crushed the plasma pills, funneling the powder with his hand into Inari's mouth. Then he took a strip of his cloak and placed it on the side of Inari's neck. "Keep pressure on that. Don't let up until you know the bleeding's stopped."
"You're going on alone," Nanami's voice was panic-stricken.
"Hyuga's probably fighting the murderer on his own right now. I'll give him some backup. You stay with Reigi-san and keep quiet. I'll radio in if I really need you."
"I can't just-"
"You will or your comrade bleeds out and dies," Murai snarled.
Nanami flinched, tears spilling over from her eyes. The fury in Murai's face cooled just a moment after its height, and he rubbed his eyes like he was getting a headache. "If you can carry him, you can come with," he finally relented.
Scrambling, the blond girl wrapped a sturdier bandage around Inari's neck for pressure and situated him on her back. It was hard - with his couple inches of height and few pounds of weight superior to hers', she shouldn't have been able to do it. But she was on her feet and able to move freely without much trouble. She thanked her lucky stars for having good chakra control.
Murai waited for her to get ready, watching mutely. Once she could go, they both took off down the hall to their final teammate's aid.
~*~*~*~*~
Sho bent and twisted and leaped around and under bars of hardened rope as the bound dagger raced to catch him with blade or cord, whichever came first. It was like a hellish game of twister - each time the kunai turned, the rope would follow, accurately marking its own path. After only a few twists, and Sho would find himself barely able to move, trapped in a cage of reinforced rope. His only relief was when the woman pulled back her weapon for a fresh assault.
She's running her chakra through the cord to make it move and suspend like that, Sho knew now. His Byakugan eyes studied the rope the woman now twirled alongside her, winding up to throw it again. Chakra was running through the rope, building up as she spun it. But that's way too much chakra for one person to put out without getting exhausted. She's got monstrous chakra capacity.
"You're pretty limber for a boy," the woman said, smiling. "Jumping around like a little monkey. It's kind of cute, actually."
He didn't respond, instead falling back into the Hyuga-style fighting stance. The woman used her free hand to wipe foreign blood from the corner of her mouth, licking it from her thumb. "The ones who struggle are always delicious," she grinned.
Mitsuzuka had silently backed to the corner nearest to his desk, eyes on the battle before him. As he pressed himself to the wall, his hand groped for the latch hidden in the wallpaper's design. He pulled it, and a hidden door whooshed open without a sound. Mitsuzuka would've gotten away unnoticed if he hadn't jostled a standing lamp in his haste to escape.
The woman's attention focused entirely on him as the lamp crashed to the floor with a loud clatter. Her eyes met the prince's for a split second. Then he dashed into the hidden passageway.
Sho attacked while she was distracted. "Hakke Kūshō (Eight Trigrams: Air Palm)!" He thrust his hand forward, ejecting a blast of chakra at the woman. She wasn't fooled - spinning nimbly out of the attack's path, she threw her roped dagger in that same motion to give it more power. Sho deflected the kunai with chakra-protected hands but realized his mistake too late. The rope coiled around his wrists, trapping them. He managed to slip one hand free before the woman wrenched back on the rope.
"Augh!" Sho's arm tore out of its socket, dislocating it completely. He crashed past the woman into the hall, taking the paper door with him. She untangled her rope from him with a light tug and ran for the hidden passage.
Fighting back the pain, Sho used his uninjured arm to hurl a shuriken at her back. The roped dagger reached up and swatted it away as if it were alive as she vanished through the doorway. Sho cursed to himself; the ouji had no chance, now.
~*~*~*~*~
Mitsuzuka hadn't been running for a minute before he heard the fast footfalls of a shinobi behind him. In the darkness he didn't bother to check who it was. The woman gave herself away willingly.
"You really think you can outrun me?" she jibed after him.
Wordlessly, he continued running as he untied the outer kimono of his attire. He shed the layer and let the red garment fly back. The woman ran into it and it draped harmlessly over her face. She laughed at the feeble attempt, pulling it off her head - in time to see the glowing paper tags pasted in the lining.
Mitsuzuka didn't look back as he grimly made the sign of the Tiger.
BOOOOM!
The explosion was so abrupt that Murai shoved Sho's arm back in place with too much force. The brown haired boy couldn't help but to scream in pain. Nanami looked up from where she was setting Inari carefully next to Sho. "Was that the murderer?"
"He drinks his victim's blood. Why would he destroy Kagiwara's body before he could get a drink?" Murai asked, explaining the theory away.
"She," Sho corrected, squeezing his eyes shut against the agony. "And it's not just blood she's drinking. She's somehow ingesting their chakra and using it as her own. The chakra levels in her are insane. She must have fed recently…." His words died when he saw the pale-white Inari lying beside him. "That bitch-!"
Murai grabbed his good shoulder before the boy could get up. "Don't even try. Anything else we need to know?"
"She uses a kunai attached to some cord to run chakra through. It's lightening quick and it hinders your movement after a few curves. It's like a third arm to her." Sho cringed as a wave of pain passed through him. "Better to dodge than deflect it," he grunted.
The jonin got to his feet. "Nanami," he ordered, running into the secret passageway.
She regretfully left Inari's side. "Take care of him." Sho gave her a nod as she left and used his uninjured arm to set Inari into a sitting position beside him. He blew an irritated sigh when the blond boy's head fell on his shoulder.
"Baka…." The shouting of castle guards resounded through the hall and Sho started yelling back for help.
~*~*~*~*~
Mitsuzuka leaned against an earthen mound, one of many that sprouted randomly in this particular chamber he'd run to. He panted and sweated to somehow catch his breath. He wasn't used to running so fast, but he didn't really have a choice. At least he was safe here.
The twang of wire alerted him - she'd survived the blast. Now thunks of shuriken and kunai burying themselves into packed-down dirt sounded repeatedly, but once it was over, there had been no cries of pain. Those hadn't gotten her, either.
"Ninja traps. Who would have thought you'd actually resort to this?" the woman mused, thoroughly surprised but in a pompous way. "Well, I'm impressed. It won't do you any good, though. I'm still going to kill you."
She looked about the dark, man-made dirt cave. Mitsuzuka had lit the torches along the wall so he could see, and the blond woman grinned at her surroundings. "Now what have you done here? Doesn't look like much of a safe room to me."
Mitsuzuka took one more deep breath. "It's not," he called out. Then he elbowed the giant dirt mound he leaned against.
Buzzing hit the air like a sudden rainstorm. The woman looked around in alarm as swarms of wasps poured out of the hives disguised as big piles of dirt. The irritated insects were of a lethal breed - the Land of Rivers was famous for them. A man was known to die of twenty stings. There were thousands emerging from the first hive alone.
"It's the deadliest room in my mansion," Mitsuzuka hollered. He dashed for the exit and was out of the room in three strides. He slammed the plank of wood down to lock the door and ran away from it.
The woman backed away as the river wasps targeted the only potential threat in the room. She snarled. "You bastard!" Concentrating more chakra into her weapon, she spun it around herself like a typhoon. Any wasp that was hit splattered on contact.
Mitsuzuka made his way to the final room before reaching ground level, half a mile away from the castle. This one was simple; empty and spacious with a trap door that was probably packed down with fifty pounds of snow. He didn't stop to rest; the prince pulled off his shirt so the sleeves wouldn't get in his way and grabbed a bucket of smelly liquid.
Just as he turned to face the door, it burst open, and the woman's bound kunai grazed Mitsuzuka's ear. He hurled the contents of the bucket, which splashed over her. But she was a force of nature. The kunai wrapped the cord around Mitsuzuka's throat and he dropped the empty bucket to pry it off. The woman slammed into him, driving him all the way into the wall across from the door.
Her gray eyes were burning with anger, wet blond hair sticking to her face. "No more tricks, you son of a bitch," she hissed.
Mitsuzuka bit down on something with a crunch, and he spat the activated ember at her forehead. She burst into flame in the most glorious fashion. The woman screamed and the kunai was loosened enough that Mitsuzuka could slip out of it. He almost ran away, but she caught his wrist.
The woman sank chakra-glowing teeth into his forearm. Mitsuzuka howled suffering, knees buckling as his limbs lost all feeling. Somehow, though, he could still feel that terrible pain, and how the blood was being gulped right out of his veins. The blond woman clutched his arm to her mouth fervently, taking long draughts of his blood.
Then her eyes widened. "KYAAA!" Her shriek practically shook the cave. She dropped him, Mitsuzuka jostled by the merciless hard-packed floor. The woman was grasping her throat, eyes bulging. "You…! What did you do?" she caterwauled.
"When an heir to the daimyo name is born in the Land of Rivers, his parents immediately start giving him doses of the water wasp's venom. My blood's more poisonous than a belcheri sea snake's toxins," Mitsuzuka panted, nursing his arm, which was bleeding profusely. His green eyes glared with unabashed defiance at the woman. "I will one day be the daimyo of a nation between two shinobi countries with no ninja army of its own. What the fuck did you expect?" he snarled.
The woman seemed to shudder and she doubled over with pain. Black blood poured from her mouth as she induced vomiting to get the poison out of her system. Mitsuzuka could do nothing but watch, losing blood by the second. Finally, the woman stood straight again. Shakily, but still standing. She wiped her mouth with her bare forearm, gray eyes tight on the ouji.
"You…You don't remember me, do you?" she growled.
Mitsuzuka narrowed his eyes and said nothing.
She made an animalistic sound with her throat, face pugnacious. "That's just fine. There are a million other ways to kill you!" She started to run towards the prince-
-only to be halted in her tracks. The woman shook with strain to no avail; she really couldn't move. Her shadow had darkened and stretched all the way back to where Nanami knelt in the doorway, making a handsign. Nanami rose to her feet and the woman copied her tremulously. "Kagemane complete," Nanami said, solemn.
Murai bolted past the trapped woman to Mitsuzuka's side. "Eat this and put pressure on that," he ordered, handing him a plasma pill and pressing a bandage pad onto the bite in the prince's arm.
The woman was making ferocious sounds of rage. "You rats! Let go of me. That heartless wreck deserves a death one thousand times the one I'm going to give him!"
"You honestly think we'd let you go?" Nanami asked, incredulous. "Like hell! We've sworn to protect Kagiwara-ouji and that's just what we're going to do."
"Kagiwara shouldn't be allowed protection!"
"What's this girl's deal?" Murai muttered to Mitsuzuka. The ouji shook his head.
"You've got me."
The blond woman bit back a string of curse words she would've like to call Mitsuzuka. Instead, she somehow calmed down a little. "…My name is Mitsui Kaoru. I'm a rogue ninja from the Hidden Grass Village. I only dropped out a few years ago, after this spoiled brat ruined my life," she hissed with a quick glare at the prince.
Nanami looked utterly confused. "How could Lord Kagiwara have ruined your life?" He doesn't seem that heartless to me.
Kaoru clenched her jaw as if the memory only brought her pain. "I was a chunin back in my village. I was the fastest, the strongest - no one could beat me. In my youth I thought it was great. I could toss those men around like they weighed nothing. I thought I was happy. But then I started having desires to be with someone, to settle down, maybe even quit being a shinobi and start a family. Then my days of humiliating the men of my village came back to haunt me. They were all either scared or disgusted with how strong I was. No one would have me. I was going to be an old maid.
"Then I got a mission to escort a daimyo's heir from his vacation home back to Kuwa no Kuni. It was Kagiwara. He was only sixteen then, but he was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen. I loved him instantly. I was so enthralled I even got up the courage to ask him if I could see him again after he was safely at home. And do you know what he did? He rejected me. Flat-out, callously rejected me."
The blond woman clenched her fist, the only motion allowed in her since she was trapped with Kagemane. "I'd been rejected before, but always for the same thing. It'd always been that I wasn't feminine, or that I was too brazen. I was too strong to be a housewife! But not Kagiwara! No. He tore a new jagged cut into my heart that day by rejecting me not for how I acted or how I looked; he rejected me because of who I am. Because of what I was born as!" Kaoru sobbed.
Murai stared at her tears flatly. "Maybe he rejected you because you're a crazy blood-sucking bitch." Nanami looked at her sensei with alarm but the words were already spoken. The genin could feel the bonds of her Kagemane bursting.
She'll break free any second!
"So I left Kusagakure no Sato and decided to destroy the object of my hatred. But not right away. No. You had to suffer first. So I started with some lower-class nobles, made it into a serial killing spree." Kaoru grinned viciously, still crying. "I made sure I killed that Hiraga Masahiro just before I got to you. Just to make sure you were thoroughly in pieces when I came for you," she growled.
Mitsuzuka's green eyes grew bright with intense anguish and fury. Kaoru could only laugh at the sight. The tears staining her cheeks and shining in her eyes only made her look deranged.
Suddenly, the Kagemane snapped completely, making Nanami yelp and shield her eyes at the blast of chakra that had broken her technique. Kaoru ran straight at Mitsuzuka, still sitting helplessly on the floor. Murai crouched in front of him protectively, ready. Kaoru's pupils were retracted to tiny pinpricks.
"Now I'll take your heart and crush it in my own two hands! Kagiwara!" she screeched.
Nanami quickly ran after Kaoru, retrieving shuriken from the sheath on her thigh. She hurtled them at the crazed woman but that bound dagger deflected each one. Now she stopped, turning on Nanami, who scrambled to stop herself from getting closer.
Kaoru grinned maliciously. She'd totally lost it. "You want to die first, huh!" She threw her chakra-enhanced weapon right for Nanami. The girl's green eyes widened in alarm.
There's no way I can dodge that thing! She grabbed a kunai from her pouch and stood in a feeble attempt to deflect the blade.
Suddenly, it went spinning to the left, glancing off of a shard of glass. Murai was behind Kaoru with twin chakra tou (chakra blades - like Asuma's), about to pierce the back of her head with them.
Kaoru turned immediately and grabbed him by the throat, throwing herself into him so she slammed him into the stone wall with her body. He tried to use the blades on her again but she knocked them from his grasp.
"Murai-sensei!" Nanami didn't have time to run to him when the rope and kunai twirled and snapped tight around her, pinning her limbs to her body. She fell without resistance, yelping painfully.
The blond woman looked at Murai's scowling face with a surreptitious one. "That blond boy was cute, and the brunette wasn't half bad, but I never really liked redheads. They're inconceivably ugly," she mused.
"You're breaking my heart," Murai grunted sarcastically.
"Don't be so sensitive. I'm sure you get it a lot."
Mitsuzuka struggled to his feet and hurried over to Nanami, who was thrashing to escape. The prince barely touched it when he drew back his hand with a wince. The rope was emanating chakra anywhere that wasn't touching Nanami. Any outside help was out of the question. Nanami's eyes were trained fearfully on her sensei as Kaoru grabbed a handful of his hair and wrenched his head to one side.
"However, chakra is chakra, I guess," Kaoru mused, using her other hand to unsnap the cloak from around his shoulders and unzipping his flak vest. Murai was already paralyzed and couldn't stop her if he wanted to. "Really, this is the best way to replenish your chakra - drinking it right out of your enemy. Though, straight chakra would hurt like hell going down. It'd destroy your insides in minutes. But, if you mix it with the person's blood, it makes for a tasty chaser. And the best part is you can't move through the whole thing - I'm sending chakra into your body that blocks your nervous system from giving orders to your limbs right now. Of course, not enough to stave off pain."
One had to give him credit: there wasn't a single not of fear in the jonin's voice. "Are you gonna kill me or kiss me?"
Kaoru smiled seductively and leaned even closer to him so their lips were almost touching. "I guess a freebee wouldn't hurt."
Nanami's face turned beet-red as the blond woman started kissing her sensei. She gaped in horror and rage. She's…! Oh hell no!
"I wouldn't have done that if I were you," Murai panted as Kaoru broke from him. "That was my first kiss, and the girl set on marrying me is going to be extremely pissed."
Kaoru laughed once, pulling Murai's black shirt to make more room for her teeth. "Your girl isn't here to save you."
Murai smiled ruefully. "Nice knowing you."
It seemed as though there was a split second where Nanami's consciousness had failed her. One second, she was screaming her sensei's name with terror, watching as Kaoru bent to sink her chakra-enhanced teeth into his throat. The next, Kaoru was the one screaming as a spray of blood spurted diagonally across her chest.
Botan crouched in front of Murai, whose expression was unreadable, his hand on his neck. The short sword in her hand dripped blood onto the floor. How she'd gotten between Murai and Kaoru, how she'd been able to get past Kaoru's defenses, how she'd even been able to appear so suddenly, Nanami had no clue. But from the look on Botan's face, the blond girl knew one thing:
The look on Botan's face wasn't anger. It was inconsolable, merciless wrath.
"How dare you!" Botan roared at Kaoru.
The blond woman was grasping at her wound, which bled dark and stained her already-ruined yellow shirt. Kaoru's gray eyes were wide, mouth gaping, in shock of what had just happened. She probably hadn't even registered the pain despite her scream.
That didn't stop Botan in the slightest. She came at Kaoru with the unmitigated fury of a hurricane, swiping her short sword to cut into the blond woman. Kaoru had enough sense left to dodge but she could barely even do that. Something was wrong with her. She looked like she was trying to speak but couldn't. I've been poisoned? How...! A quick glance at Murai and Kaoru knew - clear blue stained the saliva smeared at the corner of his mouth. He'd transferred a poison into her when she'd kissed him. No!
Botan stopped swinging only to stretch her free hand out. "Sen'eijashu (Striking Shadow Snakes)!" Serpants wriggled their way out of the short sleeve of her flak vest and launched fang-first at Kaoru, slinging around her and squeezing her limbs to her sides. Kaoru stumbled and fell to her knees, gasping at the fire coursing through her veins from the poison. Finally, Kaoru couldn't dodge. Botan drove her sword straight into Kaoru's heart.
The rope trapping Nanami slackened, the chakra fading as Kaoru crashed limply to the floor. Nanami scrambled out of her bindings and stood by Mitsuzuka, who was just as stricken to see Botan as she was. The silver haired beauty wrenched her short sword from the corpse's chest as the snakes dissipated into smoke, expression still livid.
"Nobody hurts my Nichi-kun…."
~*~*~*~*~
The rest of the night was spent getting Mitsuzuka back into the castle and calming the clamor the castle guardsmen had created while trying to find the source of the explosion from earlier. Once the prince was accounted for and safe, they seemed to calm quite easily. Mitsuzuka, Sho, and Inari were taken for medical treatment but Nanami and Murai were barely injured. Nanami didn't even have a scratch.
"Bo-sensei!" Team Five rushed into the hospital room within the castle where everyone had gathered to see the wounded. Pakkun had led them there, Naoto and Kumamichi looking more than distressed. "What happened? You just- you disappeared out of nowhere!"
Botan smiled sweetly - though, Nanami wasn't sure if she could ever look at it as a sweet one again - and hung herself onto Murai. "Everything's fine! I just had to help my beloved Nichi-oujikun," she chirped happily.
Naoto looked totally lost. "But- you vanished. Did you teleport here?" He doubted it - that was some pretty high-level jutsu for someone so young.
"Don't you get it? I'm Nichi-kun's second summoning!" Botan peeled the band-aid off of Murai's neck, revealing two puncture holes over the blue insignia tattooed to his skin. "If his blood gets on this mark, I'm automatically summoned to him. That way, I can always protect my sweet Nichi-kun~" She nuzzled up to the tattoo and Murai stood there and took it wordlessly. Though, his face was growing increasingly annoyed.
Kumamichi blinked. "That's…a little creepy."
"A little?" Megumi scoffed. "It's completely obsessive."
"But who was the one murdering the noblemen?" Naoto asked.
"A former Grass kunoichi," Murai stated blandly. "She got angry that the prince rejected her and went on a killing spree. She was using that blood-sucking guise to cover that she was actually draining chakra from her victims. Apparently, according to Reigi-san, if you could hurt yourself while she was draining you then she'd feel that pain too, and she'd detach. Guess it's too late to inform anybody, now, though. She's dead."
Kumamichi wilted with a broken expression. "You mean we missed the vampire? And it was a girl? Was she hot?" Naoto shook his head wearily at his younger teammate while Megumi ignored him completely.
Mitsuzuka kept glancing at the sleeping, pale Inari, eyes clouded with guilt. Nanami meanwhile sat between Inari's and Sho's beds, holding the former's hand since he was again unconscious. Her eyes were glued to her feet - anything was better than watching Murai being held by another girl.
~*~*~*~*~
It'd taken three days for the teams to get back on the road to Konoha again, mainly because of Inari. So much blood had been drained from him that he'd been too weak to lift his head when he first woke up. Luckily, though, he was back to his old optimistic self when it was time to finally leave.
The two teams stood outside of Kagiwara Castle, Mitsuzuka seeing them off.
"Sorry that my father wasn't here to thank you," Mitsuzuka murmured with a polite bow. The Leaf ninja bowed back out of forced manners. "Though, I'm sure his recommendations for the Leaf will be stellar when he hears the news."
"Thanks for hiring us," Botan said, smiling wide. Murai made a mutual noise of agreement. She gave him a sly look and attack-hugged him again, much to his annoyance. Nanami looked sharply away from the scene.
Kumamichi leaned a little to whisper to Naoto. "It's like a domino effect." The Akimichi boy and even Myu nodded.
"Ah, before you leave," Mitsuzuka ventured, suddenly looking a little unsure. Then he gestured with his hand. "Inari-san, I'd like to talk to you."
The blond boy blinked. "O-Oh, all right," he said, hurrying to the prince's side as his Leaf comrades carried on slowly, so he could catch up in a minute. Inari was uneasy. "Kagiwara-oujisama, if this is about how useless I was when you were being attacked, I already know-"
Mitsuzuka shook his head. "No, it's not that. You couldn't help that." He blew a sigh. "The night of the attack, just before you were going on break, you and your brown haired teammate had an argument outside my room. I couldn't help but overhear it."
Inari's ears burned and he ducked his head in shame. "I'm sorry, Kagiwara-oujisama. I shouldn't have been so loud."
"The walls are literally paper-thin, so don't worry about it. But back there you were trying to convince your teammate to let me help in the investigation, to ease my suffering. It wasn't your duty to mend a broken heart but you put your whole being into doing it anyway. I really must thank you for that. You're one of the few people I know who put their hearts before their heads."
Grinning sheepishly, Inari didn't have it in him to admit that he'd abandoned the cause as soon as he'd realized it was based on revenge. Instead, he waved it off. "It's just what I do. Besides, you've already repaid my by keeping me company while I've been stuck in bed for the past three days. We're even." He bowed to the prince, but stopped as he was turning to leave. "Oh yeah, there was something that's been bugging me for a while now."
"What's that?"
"Well, when that vampire-lady finally dropped me, she whispered something weird. She said, 'You'll die just like that last lover of Kagiwara's'." Inari scratched his head and squinted. "It was pretty dark in the hallway so she might have mistaken me for a girl…." Before he could laugh it off as some silly trick of his imagination, he saw the look on Mitsuzuka's face.
"Mitsui-san had a grudge against me because I rejected her, like I've rejected all the other women. But I wasn't completely honest when I told you my reasons." Mitsuzuka glanced away from Inari, blushing. "Hiraga Masahiro was more than my best friend. He was my lover."
Inari's mouth made a little 'o' while his blue eyes ballooned.
Mitsuzuka continued, "Of course someday I will marry a woman, because it is correct and it's what's expected of me. But…I'll never be able to love the one I marry, not completely. My desire for men would get in the way of that."
Now Inari was remembering all those times spent alone with Mitsuzuka, those strange moments where he'd stare at the blond boy too long, how comfortable he was with talking to him when the prince vehemently rejected any contact with females…. Inari's face went bright red.
The prince noticed and chuckled, tousling Inari's hair. "It's fine; you're too young for me." Then he stopped, green eyes gliding over Inari from head to toe. He looked appeased. "Come back in a few years."
Nanami turned back when she heard Inari jogging up to them. "What did Ouji-sama talk about?" she asked innocently.
Inari strode quickly so he was soon walking well ahead of his team, looking straight ahead, skin tinged scarlet. His voice came out as a squeak of fright: "The future of my sexuality."
~*~*~*~*~
Mitsuzuka shut the door to his chambers quietly. He was exhausted and wanted to get some sleep. Running a country was turning out to be a very hindering task.
"You look pleased with yourself." A figure in a black hooded cloak materialized like a mirage seated at the low table. Mitsuzuka almost hurried to find an alarm - but he saw the hooded teen and relaxed.
"Nice of you to show up. Where have you been?" Mitsuzuka asked.
The hooded teen rested his black sword on the table. "I heard about your run-in with trouble. Heard you gave the murderer a run for her money."
The ouji settled across the table from the swordsman, not even glancing at the dark weapon. "Everything you taught me really paid off. I was able to survive until help arrived. That idea of actually leading her down into the passageway was genius."
"So everything worked out in the end. Good. Sakage-sama was worried he'd lost a valuable ally. I was just coming back to check on you, but you're doing very well."
Mitsuzuka narrowed his eyes at the swordsman. "You're chattier than usual."
"I normally am after a hit."
"What hit?"
"It was nothing of great importance, Daimyo-sama," the swordsman mused, stressing the title.
The ouji's - daimyo's - green eyes grew round. "You did it? You actually killed him?"
"And no one will suspect it was anyone but the vampire-woman. Blood drained, in bed, and it was just on her way between here and the last crime scene's. Not a single trace of evidence left behind. You can take your seat as daimyo of the Land of Rivers free of suspicion of patricide - if you've agreed there should be an alliance with Kuwa and Kage." And there it was. The catch. Mitsuzuka gritted his teeth.
"…I trust you, Uzumaki-san. You're a very honest man. But is your lord worth trusting? I've heard terrible things about your organization. Will my country truly be safe? Can I trust the Sakage to guarantee that?"
The swordsman grew quiet, his hood making his whole face invisible to shadow. He was silent for a long time. Then he said, "If I were in your position, Kagiwara-sama, I wouldn't reject the offer."
Mitsuzuka nodded his head grimly. "I see. It's a bitter pill, but if it saves my country, I'll do it." He shook the swordsman's hand with a firm grasp. "Let establishing your village here make my nation great again."