Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

The grains were musty, the tubers were limp, the beets were pale, and the man across the street was a spy.

Kagome's shopping basket was only half full when he caught sight of the stinker. The man was watching him, fidgeting nervously and keeping parallel on the other side of the street as Kagome moved through the market.

The sealmaster gave it two minutes to be sure, then took a hard left and ducked behind the stall of someone selling glass figurines. They sparkled beautifully in the bright winter sun, throwing rainbows and glints everywhere. More importantly, the merchant had set up taller-than-head-height screens on three sides of his stall in order to keep the wind at bay, so it provided a good way to break line of sight quickly.

Kagome set the basket on the ground and slipped his ring boxes on, crouching slightly and listening hard as he waited for the stinking spy to make his move.

Sure enough, the stinker came around the screen seconds after Kagome himself, gormlessly unaware what was happening until he found his face rammed into the ground and Kagome kneeling on his back with one ring box pressed against the side of the man's head.

"Who are you, you stinker?" Kagome hissed. "Why are you following me?! Who are you working with? I won't let you take me, do you hear?!"

"Help," grunted the stinker.

"Don't bother calling for your friends! I'll kill you before they can get here, do you understand me? And then I'll kill them! Boom, splat!"

"No! No friends—ugh, ow!—your help! I need your help!"

What.

"What are you talking about?"

"You're the one who knows about lupchanzen, right?"

Kagome pressed down harder. "You stay away from me with your lupchanzen! You're not sticking anything in my ears!"

"No! Not you! My brother!"

"I won't let him stick anything in my ears either!"

"My name is Chie Michio. I think my brother has been lupchanzed, and I need your help to find out! Ow! Please let go, I was just here to get your help!"

What?!

"If you were here for my help, why didn't you just ask?" Kagome demanded suspiciously. "You've been following me, just watching."

"I was scared, okay? You're a ninja. I was worried you'd kill me if I annoyed you. Or if it was some kind of secret that you needed to keep."

Kagome blinked and leaned back just slightly. "Why would I kill you?"

"Um...."

"Oh, right!" Kagome stood up and backed away a step, then darted in and pulled the other man to his feet, brushing the dust off his chest with guilty haste.

"Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to...I mean, you shouldn't sneak up on people like that, so it's not my fault. But, still sorry. Shouldn't have planted you like that. I thought you were here to kill me."

"Why would I kill you?" Chie asked, frowning. "I'm here to get your help. You're the only one who knows about lupchanzen."

"How do you know about lupchanzen?"

Chie's eyes shifted from side to side and he leaned in, lowering his voice. "I hear things. And I've been keeping my ears open ever since the Watchers took me."

"Watchers? That's a myth!"

"It's not! They took me, and did experiments on me!"

"What kind of experiments?"

Chie glanced nervously around again and lowered his voice. "Can we go somewhere more private? They still follow me and I don't want them knowing I'm talking about them."

Kagome considered that. "Fine. Follow me."


"Good morning, sirs! Two today, or—"

"Function room. Everyone out."

The host sighed. "Sir, please. We have a birthday party scheduled in an hour, and they've already paid. We truly appreciate your family's business, but—"

Kagome riffled through his seals and pulled one out, causing both Chie and the host to tense up. He paid no attention, simply unsealing a bag about the size of two fists and upending it on the host's podium. A rain of ryō flowed out, coins bouncing and scattering and some falling to the floor.

"Now can we have it?"

"Of course, sir! Right this way, sir! Could I get you anything? We have some lovely tea, or pastries, or cakes, or—"

"Hot chocolate. With ginger and hot pepper oil for me. Whatever he wants in his." He glanced over at Chie. "Ginger is good. Peppers give it a nice bite. Hickory is a little weird, but tasty."

Chie looked dumbfounded. "Ah...ginger?"

"Hot chocolate, sir? We don't actually—" The host glanced at the layer of money covering his podium. "Yes, sir. It'll be just a few minutes while we get it." The host started moving towards the back room, meanwhile gesturing frantically to one of the waiters and pointing towards the podium. The dark-haired man, who had been loitering around in the background and listening with interest and clear relief at not being the one talking to the crazy ninja, nodded and hurried to collect the money.

"Here you are, sirs." The host pulled the door of the function room open and ushered his pushy customers inside, getting them seated in the dark-leather chairs that surrounded the long table. "May I offer you some pastries while we're waiting for the hot chocolate? Or a meal?"

Kagome's eyes lit up. "Do you have that carrot cake? With the butter icing and the little flowers on it?"

"Of course, sir! It's a house specialty! I'll have some brought in right away."

Kagome waited until the man had pushed the door shut behind him, then turned to the not-really-a-spy. "Start talking. What's this about Watchers, and where do lupchanzen come in?"

"It started two years ago. I noticed that my brother was acting strange...sneaking out at all hours, going off into the meadow behind the barn and then hurrying away with an armful of plants, slacking off on his chores to vanish during the day, and denying all of it. I pressed him on it and he refused to talk to me. Got angry and stormed out. The next day he poisoned me!"

"What?! The stinker!"

"I know, right? It was slow onset, took about twenty-four hours to take full effect, but then I practically couldn't move for the pain. That second night, the Watchers took me."

"Watchers are a myth. Everyone knows it's a cover story that the lupchanz conspiracy uses when they take over a promising sealmaster." A thought occurred and he looked suspiciously at Chie. "Are you a sealmaster?"

"No, sir. I'm a farmer, but I know what happened to me. I was in my bed, trying to sleep and couldn't because of the pain. It was well after midnight, a new moon so the whole room was pitch black. I heard them come into the house. The floorboards, you know. They creaked. Then I felt a presence in my room, and suddenly everything was light. So bright I couldn't see and it practically split my head, but there were shapes moving around behind it." His eyes got wide and intense. "I saw it, sir. I saw them! Behind the light, just shadows, but I saw them. They were...wrong. The way they moved, the way their bodies fit together. I don't think they were human. They did something, and I couldn't move. Stiff as a board I was. They gathered around me, all shifting and slippery, and they did...things. They did things to me, sir." He shuddered. "I can't even talk about it. They had this probe, and they—"

"Here you are, gentlemen! Two carrot cakes with extra icing and flowers, a large pitcher of water with a bit of winter apple for flavor, and some tea! You just let me know if there's—"

"Why are you spying on us?! Get out!" Kagome paused. "Leave the cake, though."

The waiter went pale and set everything down with shaking hands. "Yes sir. Very sorry, sir. I'll be leaving, sir."

"Good. And no more spying!"

"No sir! Of course not, sir! We'll leave you alone, sir. Just open the door and call if you want anything, sir."

Kagome watched suspiciously until the man had left, then turned back to his new friend. "So. These lupchanzen disguised as Watchers. They did stuff to you, and then they left?"

"Yes sir. They did stuff to me, and then they clicked and hissed at each other. I couldn't understand most of it, except for the phrase 'Not good enough'." He shrugged. "They left, and eventually I was able to move again. And after that I kept my eyes open. I hadn't heard about them yet, so I didn't know what I was looking for, but that didn't stop me from seeing them. I caught sight of them a few times. They're fast—usually it was just a little flicker out of the corner of my eye, but a couple of times I saw them plain as day. Mostly wriggly little things, each one different. They all had weird mouths and teeth, but they were different colors and different sizes. They could turn invisible; I saw them do it three times, right in front of me. There one minute, gone the next.

"There were other things, too. We started getting strangers in town every few weeks. They disguised themselves as merchants, but where were the old merchants, huh? Huh?! Nowhere! Old Sugano had been coming to our town for twenty years, and suddenly he disappears? I don't think so! Then the miller got this new kind of stone for his mill—deep red, with bits of gray and shiny flecks all through it, and these half-moon cuts on the surface. He claimed it was better than his old one, but I knew the truth—it was poisoning the flour! Everyone knows that the half moon is bad luck."

Kagome nodded. That was a well-known fact. No competent sealmaster would risk an infusion under a half moon. Or a flowering willow tree. Or in a thunderstorm.

"Anything else?"

"Yes! I spoke to one of the neighbors about what I was seeing. Thought maybe he could help me figure it out. A week later his house burned down, with him inside it. And I know that the government"—he sneered the words—"knew what was going on. A ninja went through, stayed in Mother Nana's house overnight. Six months after that, there's suddenly ninja everywhere, looking angry and searching everything. The lupchanzen hid too well, because the government men didn't find anything. They left, but after that there were more ninja going through all the time. Every few days. Not all of them were ours, either. We had foreign ones, with four slashes on their headbands. Never seen anything like it. Nobody said anything, of course. We just kept our heads down and were extra polite. Good thing too, because they were testing people."

Kagome snorted. "Lupchanzen are way too smart to be caught like that."

Chie nodded emphatically. "I know! Oh, they sacrificed a few pawns, just to throw off suspicion. Tsujiura got caught smuggling. Smuggling! Most honest guy you've ever met, and I'm supposed to believe he's a smuggler? Pfah!

"I'll tell you the weirdest thing, though. About a week after those ninja came swarming through, Yazaki—he owns our general store—starts acting weird. Asking lots of questions...trying to be casual, but pushy about it. I'd seen the lupchanz in his store twice, and his cat had been eyeing me with hate in its eyes, so I was watching close. Right about when he got all nosy, he started selling books! Really cheap, too. Who ever heard of a cheap book?" He leaned in close. "It was all the kids buying them. The kids and some of the wives. They tried to hide that they had them, and they denied it when I called them out. I went and bought a couple, just to see what it was all about. I'm pretty sure it was one of those code things. The pages were for crap, practically fell apart in my hands. The pictures were sloppy, with weird ink lines around the edges that didn't mean anything. Whoever wrote them wasn't human, either. No one draws their kanji like that—exactly the same every time, not the slightest variation." He hesitated, then hurried to correct himself. "Well, that's not quite right. Sometimes they would be darker or lighter, and the extra dots and lines around the edges were sometimes different." He leaned in farther, voice dropping to a whisper. "It was a code, I'm sure of it. Messages from their secret headquarters, telling them all what to do."

Kagome nodded. "It makes sense. The conspiracy needs to coordinate somehow."

Chie looked relieved. "You believe me?"

"Of course!"

"Oh, thank you thank you thank you. Please, can you help save my brother?"

Kagome hesitated. "I'm sorry," he said at last. "Once a lupchanz takes you, there's no coming back. Your brother is gone."

Chie's face fell. "Are you sure? There's no chance?"

"I'm sorry." Fidget, fidget. "I'm sure he was a nice guy."

Chie sniffed and swiped at his eyes. "He was the best. The best brother you could ask for."

"Have some cake. It helps." He pushed one of the plates over.

Chie stared at the treat as though he couldn't remember what it was for. Kagome nudged it a bit closer; the farmer picked it up and took a bite, then set it down.

"What do you know about these lupchanzen? Maybe there's a way to save their victims after all."

Kagome sighed and shook his head. "The reports are sketchy. They're small—the one I saw was about the size of your thumb. They crawl in through a hole, usually an ear, and eat your brain, getting all your knowledge in the process. Then they pilot your body like a meat suit. They can use your jutsu and your fighting skills." He hesitated, biting his lip. "There's more, but it's hard stuff, and it won't help you. Are you sure you want to hear it?" He waited for Chie's vehement nod before continuing. "All right. I think the person is probably still alive inside their body, at least a little bit and for a little while. No one has ever been rescued, though. Never."

Chie frowned. "They get bigger than that. I saw one that was as big as a child. A big child. It was all black and watching me from the shadows of the trees at the edge of our field."

Kagome looked alarmed. "A big child? I've never heard of one that big. I mean, I've only seen the one, and I didn't get a good look before they whisked it away. I think they might have gotten to the doctors."

"You saw one?!"

"Yep. They brought this Rock ninja's body in and did an autopsy. I was in the intelligence department and got to watch. They cracked his head open and sectioned up his brain. I think the lupchanz must have been dead, or maybe they just got lucky and cut through it before it could do anything, because it didn't move when they sliced it out of him. That was the last part of the autopsy and everything got whisked out of there almost immediately. I never got to see it again no matter how much I asked."

Chie's face lit up. "If it was that small then maybe we could cut it out of my brother! Our doctor has drilled holes in people's heads before, to let the evil spirits out, and not all of them died. And you're part of the Gōketsu, and Lady Tsunade is your Clan Leader's sister! With her help, maybe we could save him!"

Kagome hesitated, conflicted.

"Let me think about it," he said at last.