End of an Era (Naruto AU)

[The Laurent]

Act 5, Scene 2: Lying for Peace! Practice, Practice, Practice!

"The tavern's that way," the man said, leaning in a little bit. He was all angles, all skin and bones, all knots and tensions. He was, in other words, as old as the sand itself, and looking at her as if she were a threat. Suzuhisa Shizue, currently in the form of a female traveler in her twenties, frowned.

"Oh, there's not a… community center, or--"

"Tavern, and there's a shrine out there at the 'skirts."

Shizue smiled, politely. "Thanks for answering. Sorry if I came across as ignorant."

"You're a city-slicker, it's just how you be," the old man said, with a snort.

"No, more of a town girl."

"Out here, a town might as well be a city," the old man admitted with a slow, doubtful shake of his head, as if he realizes Shizue was lying. He'd better not, she thought, because she wasn't sure if she was ready to fail a mission already.

"I guess so," she said. "What do you do for entertainment around here?"

"Oh, hear there's a bunch of players comin' round. I just hope it's funny. We don't need no tragedies. The sake the tavern has is tragedy enough."

"Bad?"

The old man spat. "Missy-chan, you haven't had sake if you've had the stuff at the tavern. Take it from me."

Shizue, for a moment, imagined directing Emiko to the tavern, just to see how she reacted.

It probably wouldn't be appreciated, though.

Unfortunately.

[Opening Credits]

Shizue learned something she hadn't expected to learn. Simply put, she'd honestly forgotten how to interact with civilians outside of the kinds of tricks and masks of the spy. It was fine, because she was in fact a spy, collecting information on what the people liked, the better to not give themselves away.

But everything felt studied, at least a little bit, in a way that she couldn't understand. She'd interacted fine with civilians before as a shinobi, both under cover and openly. She'd successfully pretended to be just some other civilian for missions. But now, when she didn't have a background so much as a vague disguise that was meant to be her, but grown up… yet completely different, she didn't know how to interact with them. You can't talk about jutsu, obviously, and politics? Well, they didn't care, and didn't get it either. There wasn't the instant connection she had with plenty of other shinobi, positive and negative, and sometimes both at once.

Everything felt as if she were playing a role, even when she was talking to people and being, other than a change in voices, herself.

She swore she understood how they operated more now than she had before, and yet that didn't stop the feeling of distance she experienced towards the average villager. She sat in the tavern, and told jokes Akachi had told her, and wondered if one day she'd have a list of them, ready to deploy. It was a wonder Maki didn't feel lost, doing this. It was a terrible way to make personal connections, since of course everything was a lie.

She bit her lip, aware that she was making herself miserable when she was supposed to be listening. Shizue's own taste in plays was rather limited, but when she'd asked about stories they liked, she learned that Emiko would probably have to simplify it even more, or keep it just as complex but add a few more jokes about bodily functions. Also, religion was apparently important in the area, but she couldn't say to save her life whether that meant they should include it, or absolutely not include it because it'd hurt more to get it wrong.

And--

"Want another drink?" a man asked, and slid in next to her. He had a large nose, and soft, gentle eyes, but a rough, even tragic, face.

"Not… particularly."

Shizue had gotten by by looking around the dingy bar and, when nobody was looking, spilling some of it on the ground. In all, she'd had two very, very small sips of it, as in, a few drops each might have passed her lips. It tasted absolutely disgusting. All alochol did, but this was even worse. Could sake be rotten?

Shizue didn't know, and she smirked a little and looked over at him.

"Oh, w-well, I don't want any either, then. Can I sit here?"

"It's hardly a free country," Shizue said. "But I suppose so." They were seated at the long, long bench before the bar, and it was starting to get more crowded.

"Well, so, what are you doing here? Up to anything fun?" the man asked. "I was kinda surprised when you were gone."

Shizue blinked, her heart skipping a beat. "Okiie?" she whispered.

"Yeah, sorry I didn't tell you," Okiie said, rubbing his nose in embarrassment.

"You didn't exactly hide it well," she said, quietly, pretty sure by this point that nobody was listening. Besides, she wasn't planning on mentioning anything. "A new haircut's not going to make me forget you're the man I know."

Okiie got that she was giving them cover. "Well, I tried. And, does it not look fine?"

"Oh, your hair is nice," Shizue said. That's all, truly: nice. But she did like running her fingers through it to make it even more mussed, when they were panting between kissing sessions. So that was something.

"Yours is amazing," Okiie said. "But I didn't come here to flirt. I came to ask you to come with me. There's… news."

"Oh," Shizue said. "I think I've gotten enough here. But, uh." Shizue said, quietly. "I think we could set up near the shrine if we did it right."

"I'm sure we'll, uh, all be glad."

He was talking like a spy out of some movie, and it was adorable. He was trying so hard to be vague.

"Yep," Shizue said, almost smacking her lips as she said it, imitating a bit of a rural Wind accent. "I think this is the start of a lovely friendship."

******

As soon as they were out of range, Okiie looked around. "There's, uh. Three Rainbow Jonin on a mission here. Emiko-sensei managed to get that out of someone. Uh, nearby. Who has been relocated."

"Someone?" Shizue asked, in a low voice.

"They were apparently after a Jonin-level Missing-Nin. He was seen in the area, and I think he's murdered people before. Civilians, I mean, when it wasn't the job. He murdered someone high profile enough to… offer a mission, I think?" Okiie scratched his head. "And so Emiko-sensei went and talked to him. I dunno what happened, but I guess he, uh, can't have been so bad if they were able to be amiable."

Shizue was reminded suddenly, almost painfully, of when two S-ranked criminals who turned out to be from a dangerous organization showed up and shoved their way into Emiko's base. "And what is he doing?"

"Uh, uhm, Emiko-sensei said that he'd agreed to not get anywhere within two-hundred miles of her or else, uh. Starting now? Which seemed rather rude, but he agreed to it, apparently, so!" Okiie laughed a little nervously.

"Were you there?"

"Well, I went to see what she was up to. She was smiling a lot, and so was he, so I think maybe I was imagining it," Okiie said.

"Do you really think you were, or are you trying to be positive?" Shizue asked, with amusement.

"Okay, yes. I'm pretty sure she threatened him. But he probably deserved it, and I'd like to think that nobody actually got hurt. But she's excited, because she can lay a trail saying that, uh."

They reached the outskirts of the caravan, and switched forms with transformation, thus ending the artiste's nature walk.

But she had a lowly stagehand to talk to, as soon as she could.

*******

"An idiot who barely made it to Jonin. I knew of him. Iwa. He tried, according to his blubbering, to sell information to the Raikage about their potential enemy, the Tsuchikage. Except, right in the middle of the process, the Tsuchikage changed, and suddenly the Raikage was protesting in loud private ways that, of course, he had nothing to do with it, and he'd immediately turned them in. So, he and the other idiots got blamed. Round of internal trials and everything, but he got away by sheer luck, saw the writing on the wall while deployed on a nothing mission south of the border."

Suzuhisa Shizue had seen someone looking that self-satisfied, but only because she had seen both cats and Emiko in similar moods before. Without those two experiences, it would be unique, the smirk on Emiko's face.

"Apparently there's even more internal dissent to the Tsuchikage's alliance than I thought," Emiko said. "It means that we might have a chance to cause internal dissent, if she's not willing to see wisdom. And, let me tell you, I may seem as if I am modestly and humbly accepting this good news, but I'm actually secretly pleased on the inside." She said it as dry as dust, so dry that Shizue couldn't help but grin. "Plus, they're after him, right? So, I swept out his cave, but left a few hints that he has a mission killing someone in the area, say, in a traveling caravan."

"Oh," Shizue gaped.

"Yes. But I've put in hints that should make them suspicious. We meet with them, covertly, and then from there we'll have a line in for the Oyabun. We'll have to keep up the pretense of the plays, and we need to get this perfect, but make some single mistake somewhere. But a telling one, meant to be seen as intentional. That means that you need to be careful. If you don't, they'll catch on and reject us and it'll start a downward spiral and then war will be inevitable."

Shizue stared, wide-eyed. "What? It will?"

"No, of course not," Emiko said, with a soft smile. "If we miss this, we'll just have to be more blatant later, or we keep on going. But I know you want to make people run through the play anyways."

"Want to? Emiko-sensei, I just--"

"Just?" Emiko leaned back slightly. "Our time is through, you've spent enough time berating me for failing to fully capture your lovely vision. I must go, to be unappreciated and slowly resentful somewhere else."

And with that, she was gone.

Well.

No pressure indeed.

*******

"Really?" Junko asked, with a roll of her eyes. "Really really?"

"All three of you need to do better. The soldiers should seem crisp but out of practice. Like they read about discipline in a very good book, but one they only read once," Shizue said. ;"Okiie-kun was much better."

"We don't even have any lines," Seiichiro pointed out. But at least he was whining in a way that made it clear that he'd love to act.

Saya should have been trouble. But she wasn't. Apparently the role she was playing respected, in an abstract sense, the idea of the artiste's vision.

"Stop complaining!" the Backer, that was to say Maki, said. "If you want to pay for your mistakes in ryu, then you can, dears."

"Fine," Junko groaned. "I'll do it, I'll do it. But I want to act one day! I have potential!" She raised her hand to her (currently male) face in despair. "Why else would I be here?"

Shizue shrugged and said, "Next scene."

******

"But what is there but to love and laugh, my darling? What is there?" Saya asked, with a laugh. "You are handsome, in a hapless sort of way, and who can deal with the haplessly handsome. They don't even know it, and they act like such simpletons, but what can be simple about a pretty face?" She winked winsomely for the audience. "After all, I have a pretty face and I am quite complex, dear. I have many faces, as it were."

It was, in other words, a role--that of the civilized princess who turned out to be scheming evil things but was in love with the Captain, as opposed to the barbarian princess who was actually nice, but wasn't in love with the Captain (because she'd just met him, after all)--perfectly fitted for Saya.

The scene where she tried to poison the barbarian princess was… well.

Shizue thought about her first meeting with Saya and shuddered. Had she told Emiko about it?

"I, well, I guess if you're a princess you must know, but I don't really see it. Also, where do you keep your other faces?" the guard Captain asked.

"In my makeup bag."

A pause for laughter.

"May I see?"

"My other faces? Only if you…"

Shizue shook her head.

Things were on schedule, and one of the phrases had been planted, apparently. Shizue didn't know which one it was, but…

[Commercial Break]

By all accounts, while everyone was a little run down, the play was already a success. There were hundreds, both from the village and from surrounding villages, that had gathered outside the shrine as the shinobi (that was to say Ginchiyo's team) did double-duty by going through all the heavy lifting to make the stage with its five different backgrounds that were moved in and out, and the long, circular front part, the wings, the curtains, there were a thousand things about the stage that could have gone wrong. They all, each and every one of them, went perfectly.

The play, too, could have gone wrong so many ways, and yet they had said their lines… if not perfectly, than without a single flaw, a single real mistake. There was a huge crowd of people outside, and there were many picnic blankets to be seen, people taking the day off, the only day off in the week, to see them perform. A few of them even had umbrellas, and so they got to eat in the shade. Others stood at the back, like tall stalks of grass that hadn't yet been cut down by the scythe.

The remarks the elegant cruel princess made were quite… cutting.

The audience got the point immediately, that the play was about the war, and about different, clashing cultures. Emiko hadn't used a knife, she'd used a sledgehammer, and because of that, well. Because of that…

Shizue looked down at the knife which was currently invading her every thought by its presence. It was a very normal sort of kunai, but the man holding it was anything but normal. Dark eyed, but with bright red hair, he was dressed as any play-goer, in a simple blue kimono, but there was a sort of tension about his body, as if he were about to spring on her and devour her whole. It was startling, and more than that, so terrifying that she couldn't breathe. But she had to breathe.

"What are the Kazekage's dogs even doing here? You clearly wanted to meet with me, unless you're an innocent dupe. Are you? Either way, I'm pretty sure those were Suna ANBU signs you weaved into that play of yours," he growled. "So, talk. Now."

Play the character, play the character! (Choose 1)
[] Admit to the possibility of maybe, potentially, being someone who might have some relations to the Suna ANBU, but who has a message for someone more "weighty" than a Jonin.
[] Tease him, specifically about assuming that the man who was the 'artiste' was the one in charge of any such team. Specifically, carefully beard him as to the nature of this team, and its extent.
[] Order him, in a playful, joking, and deadly serious manner, to leave now, and to bring word to the Oyabun of his suspicions, and the schedule of the play company, and the desire to, perhaps, speak.
[] Deny it entirely, pretending to be a dim patsy of some type, in order to stall for backup which will no doubt be coming if there is enough time, seeing as the second-to-last act will be ending in a few minutes.
[] Write-in.

*******

A/N: I'm sorry this is short! But I do hope you enjoyed it.

 

[The Laurent]

Act 5, Scene 2 (Cont)

"Yes, yes, the artiste is the architect," Shizue said, trying to channel Saya and Akachi together, with just a little of Emiko's strange self-confidence, more fragile than it seemed and yet impressive. "The leader of a frightful team of Suna ANBU! Actually, that reminds me of a joke, Jonin-kun? What does the Jonin say when threatening an ANBU when surrounded by an entire other team of his allies?"

"What?"

"Ooh, you're right," Shizue said, letting the artiste's face morph into the kind of grin she'd never make in her life. "Of course, anything you'd say would be technically right, when you think about it. When you really think about. But, well, what's your name, anyways? Because the way I think about it, it seems like you haven't thought this through."

"I've thought it through enough. Koizumi, since it doesn't matter. I'm not covert, particularly. If we get into a fight, it's your guts that will be smeared on the walls."

"Yet you set yourself up against me? Why?"

"Because you were the visionary behind the play, and it's clearly meant to be some sort of message about peace and war," Koizumi growled, leaning in a little, with a look that was intense and a little terrifying. "We've been pressured these last few months, from people trying to send us into a war we can't win."

"Interesting," Shizue said, trying to affect a bored tone. "I am the artiste, the one whose name is on the play. And when a shinobi assassinates someone, they sign their personal name on his body, and when these… persons mess with you, they always do so openly."

"You don't feel like an ANBU. You're too open, too playful. But I haven't known many ANBU. But you know something," Koizumi said, sounding as if he were trying to work through things.

"I'm not the Captain," Shizue admitted. "No need to refuse to play with my food a little bit. Tease you a little. Plus, think about it. Why would the person who draws the most attention be the one who was the most important? We want you to be here, we want to talk to you, and you're so clever you've stepped in here with me?"

"My men are outside."

"All men? Boy, that's no fun," Shizue said, stepping back a little, aware that there was a vein in Koizumi's forehead, and that it was bulging, just a little bit. He was clearly annoyed by her tone, and the way she seemed so unafraid of him.

She couldn't tell the truth, of course.

Her heart had been racing the whole time, and with each taunt, a part of her stiffened, waiting for death. But she couldn't act like that, couldn't allow him to see any of her fears. They lurked, dark and strange, and of course if they fought, she'd have to balance revealing her identity with leaving herself defenseless.

She was sweating, her body was tensed up, and yet beneath it, the third layer of the cake beneath the outward confidence and inward doubt, was assessment. He was moving smoothly, but not so smoothly as to reveal anything of his talents. If she had to try to kill him, how would she do it? She'd need her puppets, but in the meantime, she could duck and dodge, and use her music to confuse and confound him. Then there was the matter of Genjutsu, and beyond that, once she had the room to get her puppets out, she could figure out his strengths and weaknesses and deal with him. One on one, her odds would be terrible but not impossible.

However, if a fight broke out, Shizue would likely have backup before too long. She could survive long enough, she realized. He was a threat, he was dangerous, and his two teammates meant that it would be immensely dangerous, but she could possibly get through this.

That part wasn't looking forward to a fight, but it expected it, it planned for it, it knew what violence was and how common it was in the world. Shizue didn't know if that had existed before, but… but even more than all the times she'd fought before, she'd reached some new level in the fight against the Hunter-Nin.

She'd done violence to people older, more experienced, and just plain better than her as a shinobi. She'd killed one of them, and barely managed to avoid killing another. She'd made choices, and those choices had put her in a place where she could legitimately look this man in the eyes, and it not be entirely an act.

Violence had a tune, it had a sound, it had a rhythm, you could play it, you could get better at it, until it came to you as naturally as playing a flute came to Shizue. She wondered if it could get to the point where you couldn't see any other way. She hoped that couldn't happen, but how would she know?

At the moment, though, she talked. "Not saying anything? Men, boy? Did you get it? Or do I need to trim sails to the winds and tell knock-knock jokes?"

"You really do want to die, don't you?"

"Well, not really," Shizue said. "So, we're at an impasse. I want you to work with me, work with us. Because we have a message, that's all, y'know? It's really not my job to pass it along, though. I'm just here because obeying orders is my job. Now, the one who gets to make all these important decisions? Well, several people, but one of them is…"

Shizue trailed off, because she'd heard something. There was a scuffling, and then a groan. "What are you…"

"I can hear my allies," Shizue said, allowing her form to shift into one of the basics of Suna
Ryu, the exact kind of style that someone like her persona would know. "I have very good ears, you know? I can hear what people are actually saying."

The door opened, and the stagehand, Emiko, Chise, stepped in. "Excuse me, sorry, excuse me. There were some people in the way. I don't remember hiring them to work with us, b-but you know those in charge. Always a-arbitrary."

Emiko wore weakness surprisingly well. She genuinely sounded as if being brave was impossible, but of course Koizumi didn't believe it. He was staring at her. "What did you do to my men?"

"O-oh, little old me?"

And then Shizue felt it, killing intent so powerful that Shizue felt almost sick, and yet she was feeling only some of it, the edges, and--

No. It was killing intent, yes, but combined with Genjutsu, in a way she hadn't expected. No wonder it was so potent. But all someone in the radius of it could feel was just how intense and murderous it was. Then, just as suddenly, it stopped.

"Oh," Emiko said, slowly. "So, we had s-stuff to talk aobut, with regards to… Rainbow. You never expect the butler, do you?"

"No, you don't," Koizumi admitted, taking a long, deep breath, clearly still a little bit shaky. but there was something confident about the look in his eyes, as if he's gotten an idea. "Nor did we expect… what is this? What do you want?"

"Want?" Emiko asked. "A meeting. We'd like to talk, very quietly and very covertly, about matters of mutual interest between our villages. That's it. Perhaps they'll go well, perhaps they'll go terribly. But we think it's important."

"We, as in Suna?"

"Yes," Emiko said. "The details will be unspooled only to the Oyabun, and we're willing to meet her, even meet her unarmed if that helps, in order to set up the preconditions to a larger meeting, in spite of… past history."

"That's rich," Koizumi said.

"I suppose it is. Can it be done?"

"No. She's not willing to leave the village to talk to you, I know it now. Because she's trapped guarding the village."

"Trapped?" Emiko asked.

"Well, it's not really a secret, that much, so no doubt if you went on through River you'd figure it out, so why not the publicly available information." Koizumi frowned. "I'm surprised you don't know about it, since Craftsman must have been telling you about it."

Emiko shrugged, and added, "We sometimes get incomplete briefings."

"Yeah, and how long has it been going on? Whatever it is?" Shizue asked.

"A few weeks."

"We were getting ready for this mission before it started, then," Emiko said. "Gathering people and writing a script takes time."

Not that much time, but then Emiko had rushed it quite a bit, had thrown things together in a matter of days before it started, and days during. Shizue felt the thrum of doubt, the warring impulses, and yet in the end he was a Jonin, aware that his odds were bad, and aware--this much was obvious--of some sort of opportunity.

"Okay, then…"

[Commercial Break]

"It begins with the villages of River country. Craftsman is yours, and Valley is Iwa's, though a little weakly, and we're independent, and that's that. But many people don't like it. Craftsman has been keeping hands-off, thanks to your nicer policies, just like Konoha used to do." He shook his head. "That changed fast. But Valley? Valley's been making moves. Not direct attacks, or at least, nothing that can be responded to easily. It involves their specialty--"

"Traps," Emiko said, thoughtfully. "Outside the village?"

He startled, and Shizue was reminded that Emiko could be very perceptive, and she had a lot of experience. When one combined them together, she got things sometimes just as fast as Maki did, or even faster, and without the Shomeigan to help. "Yes…"

"Non-lethal, or it'd be war, and even Iwa can't approve."

"You don't like Iwa?"

"Well, who would?" Emiko asked, her voice empty of emotions, carefully controlled. "So. Non-lethal. What happens when they catch people?"

"They strip them of all their gear and then send them in their underwear back to the village."

"Oh. So, what do they do when the Oyabun or other teams hunt after them?"

"Run. But they're clever and fast, and it's hard to search everywhere, not when that makes no money. But with employers afraid to come into the village, it's been hurting us. Not too much, but they've paired it with requests that we come into alliance with them. And that, truly, is all the public information I can share. Anything else is private."

"And why did you share it?" Emiko asked, no longer even pretending to be the stagehand.

"So you know what you have to do to meet with the Oyabun. Either make your way inside, and, well, trust us. Or deal with the problem and maybe she'll come out and meet you."

"Maybe," Shizue asked, raising an eyebrow.

"She'd owe you, at least. Even though you used to have a bounty for her. An active one."

Of course he didn't know the truth, didn't know their full history. So, what did that mean.

"Well… we'll consider it. Now, I would advise that you leave. You can't go back to your village, can you?"

"...No. We've been staying near the village. We might divest ourselves of gear and just walk in."

Shizue thought that sounded awfully pathetic, but of course that was the point.

*******

"Well," Maki said, when Shizue had explained just what happened. "That's a complication."

Maki sometimes said really, really obvious things.

[End Credits]

So, what do they do?

[] Try to sneak through the traps to meet with the Oyabun. But, with abandoning the cover, and with having to fake it in front of an entire village, plus the Oyabun, it would be pretty dangerous.
[] Covertly try to set up traps for the trappers, to catch them, humiliate them, and drive them away.
[] Confront the Valley-Nin directly, as Missing-Nin hired by an upset client--name can be carefully gathered by surveillance--who was turned away thanks to them. This is the option that involves a very high chance of, once again, engaging in deadly and dangerous violence. And it's also obvious in some ways. But it's also potentially permanent.
[] Disguise themselves as clients and try to get ambushed… and then ambush the ambushers, in a way that hopefully threatens them to back off and let them through. It'll just look like a Rainbow scheme, but it wouldn't solve the fundamental problem, just put it off a little.
[] Write-in.

******

A/N: Another week, another apology for having a short update. I swear that I can write longer than this, it's just there's only so much to say before we get to a new vote. I'm still trying to get into the groove for it, but this vote should result in an at least slightly longer update. Maybe even significantly longer, depending on what's chosen.

 

[The Laurent]

Act 5, Scene 3: A Mission for Peace! The Quick and the Trapped!?

Things started to go wrong for the production right after that. It disturbed the Artiste's delicate vision, and that led to the Backer complaining, and the Owner, a man not suited for such chaos, to wring his hands and moan about why it was all happening now. Nobody suspected the Stagehand, let alone who the Stagehand was, and by the time they'd gone through their third performance, they were falling apart, despite doing startlingly well in terms of how much money they were making. But they were one major failure at the wrong time from falling to pieces, and all of the staff knew it. So when it all broke apart, it wasn't a surprise.

The Artiste and the Owner were arguing, and for once the Owner wasn't giving in, desperate and sure that it was something about the script, or perhaps the ambition of it, or something like that. The Artiste was sure that they just had to fire all of the "screwup stagehands" and it'd all be fine. They went back and forth, louder and louder until everyone in the troupe was gathered, going at each other with the hardest words they could find. But the Owner always pulling his punches, always fidgeting, always seeming to duck out of the way of the worst of the words, a little head motion that looked positively gormless.

(Akachi and Shizue weren't doing all that well, in one sense. Akachi's acting was far, far ahead of what it normally was, but he wasn't remembering some of the lines and cues as the Owner, and so he was making it up as he went along. He was doing well at it, but there was an experience difference. Meanwhile, Shizue was aware that she was wooden, that she was falling back in cliches, throwing back all of the carefully remembered information and lines. Neither performance was bad, but when Maki came in, Shizue knew that the other girl was exasperated.)

"What are you two doing? Fighting like beasts. I'll not have it. The script is promising, but guess what?" Maki leaned in, the old woman looking extraordinarily smug. "I have a copy. I can use it without any of you…"

"No, wait!" Owner yelled, stumbling forward. "Please, don't--"

"Oh, do calm down, dear boy. I'll pay the last round of pay, if that matters so much. But this whole investment was a mistake, and my husband would be rolling over in his grave if he saw how I'd gambled it," Maki said, with a tsk, already dismissing them. Her head shook once, such a look of disdain carefully etched on her face.

And just like that, a few lines, and a tone, and this feeling of sincerity about her dislike, was enough.

Everyone knew: it was over.

The troupe was going to break up.

[Opening Credits]

It took five days to settle accounts. Five days in which she had to play an artiste getting more and more drunk, desperate and afraid, and then stumbling off to get a horse and leave not only the troupe, but the country, or perhaps even life. Perhaps 'he' found somewhere quiet and out of the way to die, rather than being a bother for once, she heard one of the stagehands comment.

(Shizue snuck into his room and coated the snacks he kept kept in a very mild poison that caused one to evacuate from both ends. It was highly unethical, but so was… was. Shizue thought of Maki, of her wrists, of--

It wasn't something that could be joked about, and perhaps Shizue was growing more used to being a shinobi, because she didn't even feel guilty all that long. She even hummed once she was clear and away.)

What actually made her feel bad was watching it fall apart. Yes, it was a cover, doomed to collapse at some point or another, but some of the actors and stagehands, they had nothing else. They were desperate, they had to be to sign onto this troupe, and now they've been left with one last, somewhat more substantial than planned, paycheck. People were going to be miserable because of this, and yes, the man was going to be miserable because of Shizue, but that felt different.

What was their crime? Wanting a job? The only good news was that, since the performances were solid enough, perhaps someone local would hire them. Maybe.

Shizue bit her lip, and fiddled, snapping her fingers, too afraid that something was going to go wrong to even play music. But she kept on snapping her fingers, and tried to imagine it as the start of a song. Would she use it as a sort of organic way to emphasize… what? Hrm. Shizue considered that, because that was easier than anything else. She considered it when Emiko sent her up in a tent with a pile of trap parts, and she considered clapping as she began to make the first rope trap.

It was very meditative, making traps that were supposed to be good, but not great. They needed to convince the Valley nin that there was cause to return to their camp, so that Emiko could identify it, and also the ways through the traps they no doubt surrounded it with. It was an intimidating sort of almost-low standards. But instead, she thought about claps, and finger snaps, and earthier sounds. She had the travel song down pat, and she just needed to find a good arrangement for it. It wasn't going to be fingers and claps, but she thought it could help, either to set the mood, or perhaps to even time the beat in the heads of listeners. Shizue could listen to a song and just know those things, because it wasn't really that hard when you were trained to think that way.

Claps could give someone something to follow along with. Actually, it'd be a good way to teach music. It was how her Mom had started, besides identifying notes on the flute. Clap your hands to the beat, no, wrong, time it better, there you go, honey. It was something to think about. Shizue imagined teaching kids to love music, and that didn't seem so bad. She pictured teaching her teammates it, and imagines their rolling eyes, and despite the stress--making a trap with explosives meant risking death, of course--she couldn't help but laugh, full and deep, hoping nobody ran in thinking she was in danger.

She wasn't. Not unless she actually tried to baby Saya through knowing how to clap to a beat.

That thought--which was amusing mostly because she knew Saya, or else it'd be unnerving--powered her through several gas traps. Those were always difficult, and without Emiko's fuinjutsu seals, she wouldn't be able to do them at all. But at the same time, she knew that the point wasn't, quite, to beat all of them: or at least, not to try. Instead, they were supposed to be a threat without being too terrifying, and so it wasn't too much work to make it smoke instead of some of the worse poisons, or make the poison slow-acting, since any trap maker probably also had some skill in dealing with poisons.

It was all delicate, intricate work, and Shizue was doing her best, but she knew that it'd be very lucky if it caught more than one or two of them. They were experts, the people out there, and it'd be very sloppy for them to be caught by a former Genin, which was all that she was, even with Emiko's help for some of the harder fuinjutsu. Ichiman was also helping out, but separate from Shizue.

It took time. It took days, to make all the traps, even though most of them were going to be destroyed, only for her to make more of them. She ate, she slept, she crept behind a bush, and on occasion her teammates visited her, and on occasion she visited them. It was a very lonely sort of existence, but there was always music, and making traps like these of course made her think about her puppets, and how she could make them better.

She knew she was isolating herself, but it was just for a little while, no different than how she sometimes was with puppets.

If she wanted, she could take more time and spend time with the others in the little bit of forest they were hiding out in, surrounded by so many layers of Genjutsu and basic traps that it'd take a concerted effort to discover them without being picked off first. There was, in theory, time. The kind of mission that involved blockading a Hidden Village wasn't exactly going to be called off anytime soon, unless Rainbow folded. But why would they? One retreat would presage another, and at least for the moment they can endure the lost revenue. For now. It won't change in an extra day or two.

Instead, she just kept on working. So when Akachi visited with food, she was surprised right in the middle of setting up a false-branch. If someone stepped on it, it was supposed to collapse, but she suspected she'd gone too far, and wasn't going to be able to make it convincing enough, at least not without Genjutsu to fill in the cracks.

"Yo, Shizue-chan," Akachi said, from outside her tent. "I have sushi for you. You see, did you know that River Country has a lot of rivers?"

Shizue made a face, glad he couldn't see it. "One would gather…"

"One would, one would," Akachi snorted, "I'm coming in. So don't jump or anything."

He strode in, carrying a bento box with him, smiling faintly at the hungry look that passed across her face. It was true that she'd forgotten breakfast, and had some jerky for lunch, but it wasn't that late, not really.

"It's a half-hour until nightfall, and Emiko-sensei gathered that you probably haven't eaten, because neither she nor Maki-chan would have eaten if they were that obsessed."

"Oh," Shizue said, slowly, blinking a little. She hadn't been sleeping all that well, either. It was a lot of work, and a lot to wake up each morning with thoughts of traps in one's head. "Well, tell them thank you. Why you?"

"Okiie-kun wanted to go… actually, we've had to keep him from bothering you at all hours, because it wouldn't be bothering you. You'd like having him around," Akachi said. "Even if you do kinda look like, uh. Like someone who has spent the past days staying in a tent most of the time and obsessively making traps."

Shizue flushed, looking up at him, "Akachi-kun, really?"

"Akachi-kun really," he echoed back at her. "Really, really. Now, anyways, so, here's a special bento of sushi and other things. Okiie-kun made it with love, or something like that. Also, I need to talk your ear off about kunai-based traps. Specifically, kunai launchers. Emiko-sensei and I've both figured out exactly how to get a launcher that'll fail in a way that seems to hint at flawed springs."

"I still don't quite get why I have to fail. Or, I guess, why I have to go out of my way to fail. It's not like I stand a good chance of succeeding." Shizue opened the box, smiling down at the perfectly made sushi, as well as the pickled veggies and what looked like, surprisingly, a little bit of mochi there as a dessert.

"Well, there's probably a variety. If you go all out, then it might make whoever's in charge paranoid. But you can't give anything that much less than your best. Or the world is doomed. I mean, not really, but everything's important." Akachi shrugged and said, "Just, remember, even when we're going all out, we don't want to blow their limbs off."

"Of course not," Shizue said.

"Well, actually, I kinda do? It blows that we have to keep everything non-lethal. Also, that you have to do all this work. Saya-chan's been… kinda terrible. And she's been egging Ginchiyo-chan on."

Shizue winced. If Akachi thought that Saya was being pretty bad, then it was a real problem, since the two of them got along well enough.

"Have they fought yet?"

"Twice. Saya-chan won the first fight, just from surprise and a rare knockout neurotoxin she'd, um, well, liberated from Emiko-san's stash."

Shizue gaped. "Really? And Emiko-sensei didn't notice?"

"Well, she probably thought Saya-chan would use it more responsibly. You didn't hear any of the shouts? Her boytoys thought that Saya-chan had killed her or something."

"When was it?"

"Two days ago."

"I… think so? There was a little noise, so I started singing louder to myself," Shizue admitted, aware that her face was approximately beet-red.

"Well, then it's a shame we missed that. You have a good singing voice," Akachi said, surprisingly earnestly. "Instead, we had to listen to Emiko-sensei sing to herself as she worked on the fuinjutsu to pass over to you."

"Her voice wasn't bad," Shizue protested.

"But she was mumbling half the words, and belting the other half, like it was a radio and she was playing with the volume. Which, maybe it is. It's a weird world out there. Dogs can talk sometimes, and ghosts can come back. Why not a radio-sensei."

Which only made Shizue think about some weird program over the radio teaching everyone about shinobi secrets, and from there, she could barely focus for laughing. She imagined, 'Hey Kids, wanna learn how to assassinate someone? Then tune in…'

Which meant she had to tell Akachi what she imagined, and at that point? He joined in.

******

There were a lot of rivers, and she hadn't thought about what that'd do to her work. It meant that there were only so many areas she could cover that weren't covered already, and so she'd look at the cool water and glance over at Emiko, and hope that they didn't go too much by riverside to travel. It would be clever if they did, even if it also seemed as if it'd slow them down immensely.

These were spring days that were almost always lovely, despite the rain, now and again. She set up all the traps, lost in the simple rhythm of it, staring at a sky so lovely it needed a rainbow. The ground was damp, the world was a little soggy, but there was something like an old shinobi in it. It was as if, having weathered the storm, one could expect it would weather another. Even if there was a war, the land would still be there, right? That's how it worked. So she stared up, trying to track the way the clouds shifted in the sky, the way the sun flickered like a light switch as the clouds got in her way.

And when she was done, then all that was left was waiting at the appropriate place, back at camp. But she wasn't ready to do much, and so after hanging out with Okiie for a while, she just paced, looking up at the sky.

She hoped she captured at least one person.

Time passed, and the world was wreathed in shadows, and still Emiko hadn't returned. Shizue wasn't worried, she couldn't be, not when Emiko was how she was. But she did hope that they could get to the next stage, the one where she got to see some of the trap material they had. She bet there was some stuff she could use for her puppets, for that matter.

But when Emiko didn't come back by bedtime, she thought that something could be wrong, but reassured herself that things were probably alright.

As it turned out, she was perhaps optimistic.

******

Shizue was woken up by a crash, like someone stumbling against her tent. She sprang up, grabbing a kunai and pulling her tent open, kunai at the ready, just in case. Standing out in the darkness, listing to one side, was Emiko.

"Hey, Shizue-chan, you're holding the kunai wrong. Your grip makes it easy for someone to just disarm you."

Emiko groaned a little, and then stepped forward to lean against the side of the tent.

"Emiko-sensei, are you okay? You're not drunk, are you?"

"No. why would you…"

Emiko shook her head, biting her lip. "I got everything we need, well, almost. Do you want the good news first, or the bad news?"

"Bad news," Shizue said, looking closer at Emiko as she did. It seemed as if Emiko's leg was out of action, or at least she was strongly favoring her left leg over her right. Emiko looked, in fact, entirely sober and completely exhausted.

"First, the leader of this expedition is Sakuma Tatsuzo , nickname: 'The Legbreaker of Valley.'"

Shizue stared, and then blinked. "What?"

"You see, back when he was just sixteen, he made this rather clever trap, and used it to almost kill a dozen different genin at his Chunin Exam. He maimed people, shattered their legs with the kinds of traps that would have had the average Chunin sweating. He was a ringer, and he enjoyed the suffering of his victims, or perhaps just liked being an obvious ringer, someone who probably could have been put through the Exams a year early, but wasn't. Nobody died, and… he did become a Chunin." Emiko shrugged. "If you haven't noticed, you don't get points for decency when it comes to evaluations of how good of a shinobi you are. He's gotten better, though slower than you'd expect someone coming off the starting block so hot. He's in his thirties now, and is, well, you know how Special Jonin are Jonin in one small area, but Chunin otherwise?"

"Yes?" Shizue asked, worried for Emiko. She clearly needed to lay down, not be explaining this to Shizue.

She could see the pain, the way she needed to…

"Hey, please, lay down, Emiko-sensei."

"Not sure I'd be able to get up," Emiko confessed, with a shrug.

"Then don't. We can fetch and carry," Shizue insisted, despite the fact that it was late at night, and she was very tired. She'd be entirely willing to go somewhere else to sleep, if Emiko would hurt a little less. "Rika-chan can come here."

"Fine," Emiko grunted, limping into the tent and lowering herself down over the the blankets, covers and pillows that Shizue had been using as a bed. "Okay, so, he's more like a Special S-ranker, at about the same place I was this time last year, only probably a bit more dangerous. I've grown stronger since then, but he's still a deadly genius who can match a low S-ranker at traps and everything related to them. I know he was leading because he was one of the ones to rescue them. Which is the good news." Emiko closed her eyes. "You captured five of the members of the ten-person team. It was almost as hilarious as realizing that one of the best Hunter-Nin in the world was getting clowned on by a bunch of teenagers and myself. Special-Jonin, all of them, and specializing in traps. And they got caught."

Shizue gaped. She'd been hoping for one or two of the weaker members. But, five? The weakest, Shizue assumed, but the weakest half of a team specializing in traps?! Sometimes luck was just on your side.

"So, I followed them out when they'd escaped, I found their base, and I decided to steal all of their equipment. I stole almost everything, but two of Tatsuzo's scrolls were too trapped for me to steal from them safely. And I wasn't sure what would happen if I destroyed them, in this case, with the fuinjutsu seals. So I left it for someone else to find. Fire fuinjutsu, but it's a bit crude. Maybe it'll work." Emiko shrugged. "The smaller scrolls, the ones they use for immediate traps, were replaced with ones filled with defective materials, so that there'll be at least a moment of uncertainty. I was almost caught, in that Tatsuzo wasn't taking it for granted that they weren't followed. He placed traps along their safe route through, and I avoided most of them but got caught by one of the last."

Shizue nodded. "And then?"

"I shifted out of the way. The way one part of the legbreaker trap works, though he's improved it, involves this pistol slamming down on the leg to shatter it. I shifted out of the way. I'll have a big, long, terrible bruise from here to here." Emiko indicated an area all the way from just below her lip to just along her knee, on one side. "But I got out, and even replaced the mechanisms, so it should fool him that I got through unscatched. And if it doesn't, oh well?"

Emiko's eyes were fluttering in a way that made Shizue suspect she was fighting sleep.

"So, does this change things?"

"Maybe. Maybe it does. We can't, even with this high-level equipment, expect to be able to capture him using traps. What if he leaves and comes back with more? We'd be slowing things down by weeks, but not forever. Of course, things can change quite quickly, and it'd be enough time…"

Emiko was blinking, trailing off. "I'll just have to, have to." Emiko shook her head. "I need to sleep. Could you get Rika-chan here? I'm sorry for stealing your bed."

Shizue could only imagine it: Emiko had been caught by a trap, but if she'd cried out, she would have been caught for real. It would have been a fight, and hurt as she was, maybe she'd have lost, maybe she would have won. But either way, her cover would have been blown. She couldn't pretend to be a merely exceptional Suna ANBU Captain. Especially since she probably lacked some of the skills, had different specializations.

Her entire life and the entire mission was at risk, and she escaped, and then traveled on her own, badly injured, back here. And she probably would have gone to her tent to sleep after alerting Rika-chan on her own, if she hadn't stumbled.

They were one step closer.

That was a good thing, at least.

[Commercial]

What's the plan? (Choose 1)

[] Hostile Working Environment: Start capturing the Special-Jonin and others and stripping them, make it hard to work there, hard to continue the mission, and then hopefully they'll temporarily retreat to resupply and figure out a way around this issue. That would give them a chance to talk to the Oyabun, and perhaps she could figure out a way to deal with them when they came back.
[] Sucker-Punch: Capture the others with these traps, and then throw down with Tatsuzo, from surprise, and hopefully successful capture him so he could be stripped and perhaps… given as a good-will present to Rainbow. Who will no doubt hold him hostage for reparations.
[] The Long Grind: Attrition. Force them to use more and more resources, beat them at their own game, even if it might be a weeks-long sort of game. Wait for them to make a mistake, and take them out. Can Emiko's team, and Shizue, truly surpass even experts of Valley? Perhaps, perhaps they can, and if they won it'd be the end of any such attempt, if the loss was humiliating enough.
[] I can Do It!: Try to create, with the help of all her friends, and Emiko-sensei too, the perfect trap, one that even the infamous monster and trap-expert will fall to it. It's ambitious, but at the very least it forces him to engage with her, rather than any other plans involved.

******

A/N: So here we go.

 

[The Laurent]

Act 5, Scene 3 (Cont)

The materials were quite satisfactory. More than that, they were excellent. Pieces of steel for bear-traps that had fuinjutsu etched delicately all along the material, making it stronger, harder, better. Rope that even a kunai couldn't cut without a minute of work. That was harder to work with, but Shizue knew that it'd help. Not against anyone who had skill at wind jutsu or chakra flow, but the point of the various traps wasn't to catch and hold absolutely everyone who stepped in it. Not truly.

Making traps was like crafting a song. You couldn't make a song that worked with all voices, all instruments, that sounded pleasing in the rain and in the sun, that lifted the heart during a funeral and could be sung at a birthday. You crafted your song for the occasion, and if you made it well, it could fit many occasions. Just so, a trap designed to catch everyone tended instead to catch nobody that mattered. Of course the best traps made by a Jonin could catch any true Genin. What good was that? No, the best traps could snare even those who thought themselves too skilled for it. A song could capture the ears of even those who didn't intend to be caught. Shizue liked to imagine that, liked to imagine that she could create songs, one day, that people wouldn't be able to help but sing, couldn't help but like, even when they weren't the musical type.

So she worked, and this time, with more ambitious goals in mind, she experimented, she tried each idea out like one might a sequence of notes in a song. It didn't have to be perfect, but it did have to be just right. The tent, now filled with even more in the way of clutter, felt like a small space, like a blanket fort from when she was just a small child, smuggled up to her mother.

(Was it odd, the things that could remind her of her mother? Her mother had never been particularly or especially given to the art of trap-making. But any act, any craft, any moment that combined intimacy with learning some craft--all those days with her mother, learning music, note by note--seemed to draw out the melancholy. She wasn't sure if that'd ever change, if perhaps even all these years weren't enough. By the standards of adults, 'all these years' wasn't that long ago, after all.)

Emiko came to her halfway through her work, looking better but still limping a little. "So, I've finalized the team list, Shizue-chan."

"Oh, who's on it?" Shizue asked.

"For the ambush, I'll be there of course. I'm the only person who can face him one on one in an even way. Ginchiyo-chan has offered to be part of the backup squad, because Ginjiro-kun is part of the main team."

"Why backup?"

"She has a katana. If she actually got a cut in, she could kill him. There's always going to be danger, but some people, even as chunin-level, have the possibility of killing him in an unlucky moment. Ginjiro-kun, though, is a master of wires, and his earth chakra flow means he could make the wires almost impossible to cut. He could trap in and isolate Tatsuzo-san in ways that even I'd struggle with. Additionally, your puppets make you versatile, and so I'm including you on the team. We need someone strong, and Saya-chan had poison. So she gets to join in. Four people is more than enough, any more and he'll use you against each other. Rika-chan and Akachi-kun will be in the backup along with Ginchiyo-chan. If we do badly injure him, we'll need to keep him alive."

Shizue listened to all of it quietly as she worked, just slower, barely even glancing at Emiko. It all made sense, and it was hard to imagine any other way that'd work, not really. Yes, Okiie could potentially do Ginjiro's job, and perhaps Akachi could? But she trusted Emiko's judgement that of them, Ginjiro was best.

Which left her to try to set it up. After all, unless nine of the ten members of the group were taken out and out of the way, then there was no point in planning for the fight. As powerful as Emiko was, she wouldn't win this fight if Shizue didn't do her best, and that meant.

"Emiko-sensei, can you help me with the Gen-Fuinjutsu?"

"Of course," Emiko said. "We don't have that much longer before it becomes more difficult. They're hunting for us, too."

It wasn't going to be a game at all, but it was starting, this struggle. Yet another struggle, but this one would help an entire village and, rather more importantly, it would allow her to take one more step towards peace. That made it worth everything, didn't it?

*******

The first three weren't all that difficult. Down near a creek bed that some of the Rainbow nin had been using to travel while avoiding traps, a Special Jonin, a short, rather stocky woman, fell prey to the ankle-biter trap hidden among the weeds. She flailed and fell flat on her face into the water, and the splashing drew the other two ("Buddy system" Emiko had muttered when she saw them") towards her, which was when the gas traps went off. In such a low-lying area, the cloud of dark mist rose fast enough that one of them was caught, falling like a stone.

The third one, clearly more skilled, backed up, eyes wide, ready to do something. Then froze.

From the hiding spot up on the ridge, looking down, Shizue could see that Emiko had her fingers in the monkey seal, eyes glinting. The third one turned and ran for his comrades, but stumbled over some rocks, and fell with a shout of horror.

"Sorry, clumsy," Emiko admitted. "I think he realized that he still had a mouth, despite my efforts."

Realized he… still had a mouth. Shizue didn't even know that you could make someone forget that with Genjutsu.

"What?"

"I admit, I was experimenting," Emiko added. "I was experimenting with something new. Now, let's get these guys hauled away to the secondary site before anyone comes to get them."

Shizue thought about that, and shuddered. She trusted Emiko, but she did admit that experimenting in making people forget body parts even existed using Genjutsu seemed like the kind of thing a villain in one of Okiie's comics would do. But then she didn't know the full scope of her powers, but she was pretty sure that if this was Emiko reaching for Kage-level tricks, it was going to be difficult, rough, and the result was going to be terrifying. S-rank ninja were scary, especially the ones who'd really earned the title.

So perhaps the fact that Shizue was unsettled was a good sign? She could hope.

******

It wasn't until the third group that there was trouble. It'd been, if not easy, than at least surprisingly straightforward to capture two more of the Jonin and one of the other Special Jonin. That left six members down, with four more to go, including their final target.

That's, of course, when things went wrong.

But like any play, the scene needed to be set, and Shizue thought that of all the places and times to have a fight, this was… just about average. It was near the Alo River, on a floodplain that had once belonged to a farmer who was no doubt hiding out in the face of all this chaos. As it was, said plain dipped down as it drew closer to the river, into a hard to navigate clumps of trees that had been planted for shade but had long since overwhelmed the entire riverside area. The crops were a wash, but the trees made a very good place to hide, and at least a few Rainbow nin, judging by the tracks and a loose kunai found in one corner, had used it in the past. If one had a skill in the water, it was even better, because one could always leap into the river to escape. At least in theory.

The first of the targets, a large, tall man who nonetheless had moved with a startling grace, had gone down not nearly so gracefully, hitting the ground in what was a rather impressive imitation of the legbreaker track, but with a less painful results. He twisted and struggled, not yet knocked out, even though Emiko was using genjutsu to increase the pain.

The second, who moved to help him, fell into a pit which had a liquid that, when it came in contact with skin, tended to put people to sleep. She didn't stand a chance.

But that's when Tatsuzo came in, and everything went very, very wrong. He was a plain man, with dark hair and features scarred by pox, wearing a rather large coat, filled with pockets and pouches even visible from far away. He reached down and in a single motion too fast for Shizue to see, undid the trap. Of course, it was his trap. Then he helped the man up, his expression hard and distant.

Behind him was a woman, tall and leggy with scarred hands and a single eye slashed closed. The other… it was too far away to tell. Brown, maybe?

"Sir. I suspect now that there are mines behind us."

"As do I," Tatsuko said, glancing over at the forest. "Whoever you are, know that this is an act of war and that you will be duly punished for it!"

Shizue stared in dismay. Instead of one, there were three. That was… far from optimal.

And then they began to move, stepping around the traps with startling ease when Shizue had expected she'd be able to capture them, and then any that tried to escape would face the carefully buried mines that were all within her control, hers to blow up when she would. Now…

Now what?

[End Credits]

This can be salvaged, but how?

[] Attack now. There's an ally down in a pit for them to worry about, the field is set up with traps, and there's the mines behind them to hem them in. Yes, it's going to come when they're most prepared, so there's less ambush to it. But there are corresponding advantages.
[] They have to go through the forest to get through, the perfect place to pick the right time and leap. Yes, they'll be waiting for an ambush, but that only increases the tension, and in the woods attacking and fading is a definite possibility.
[] Emiko's team consists entirely of shinobi from Reef. That is to say, people who are used to fighting on and near water, even before they began to learn to walk on it. In such an environment, some of the team--and others brought in from the secondary team in a limited capacity--can surprise the enemy, and with freedom ahead and the forest behind, any attack would leave them torn between staying to win, and running while they can.

And Shizue's strategy?

[] Keep both puppets back, not that far away from her, but not too close. At least early on, use them for harassment rather than directly engaging the enemy.
[] Both of them as close as they can be while doing what they can. Put on the pressure early on, even if it does leave her somewhat vulnerable in theory, and does expose her puppets to risk. That's what they're there for.
[] Keep Ryuko closer to Shizue. It increases her safety, and saves Ryuko for later, but means that early on she'll be somewhat distant from the action, even more distant than she'd be in firing position.

******

A/N: Another short one.

 

[The Laurent]

Act 5, Scene 4: Danger By The River! The Game Of Traps?!

"The river," Emiko decided, quietly, glancing over at Shizue as if she was going to countermand Emiko.

Shizue decided that it must be a sign of respect, and so she spent one half-second considering it. The river would give them several advantages, and she knew that Emiko had made traps near the river specifically. It'd also provide a good excuse to run and hide if things got too hot. And they could bring in more members of the team if all fell apart.

"Yes," Shizue said.

"You need to get through the forest before they do," Emiko said. "Position yourself at the tree right at the waterline, the one that's half-collapsed."

They were already moving, carefully dodging all the traps. Shizue had tried her best to trap the forest, just in case, but no doubt they'd make it through mostly or entirely unharmed. But what mattered was that they were on guard, that they expected to be attacked at any moment. Shizue knew what she wanted her enemies to be, what she'd pray for them to be: distracted, annoyed, stressed, and tired.

So she turned and hurried into the forest, hidden by Emiko's Genjutsu, as Emiko and the rest of the squad stuck around, slowing them down with Genjutsu, and with the fact that if they faltered too much, they could even attack.

The forest was familiar after all the time going back and forth setting up the traps, and Shizue slipped through it all, her thoughts on strategies and plans and schemes. She needed to attack all out. She'd only just fixed up her puppets, but if they were going to be wrecked again, better them than…

But the thought was odd, because of how reluctant she was to think it. She'd killed people and cared only a little bit afterwards, and yet the thought of destroying her puppets filled her with the animal panic of a beast caught in a trap it couldn't understand.

She tamped down her fear as best she could--which wasn't very well--and concentrated on being as silent as possible as she finally reached the riverside.

It was a wide, beautiful river, though at the moment it was silted up from a landslide some ways up. One that Emiko had caused, to provide room to hide in. The sandy bank was pressed right up against a huge cluster of trees, and so the beach itself was a half-dozen feet, upon which the fight would have to take place. The puppets couldn't walk on water, so they'd have to harass from behind if they tried to flee.

Shizue squinted, looking at the water, trying to identify where the water-traps were, but she couldn't see any hint of the traps. Emiko had said they were some of her most spectacular, if also quite non-lethal. And she was going to be in the water, waiting and watching and ambushing. And if they hurried to go back into the forest… well, she had been an Iwa nin. She could go under the earth, just as she could go under the water.

Of course, with luck they probably wouldn't have, the Valley-Nin would never even know Emiko was from Iwa. But she couldn't hold back any more than it took not to kill them. None of them could afford to.

There was one particular copse of trees that was thick… but also wasn't there, and Shizue hurried inside of it, knowing it was there only because she'd been told. She pulled out her scrolls and summoned her lady dragon and her fine gentlemen, at last.

Stinger and Ryuko, reporting for duty!

Ginjiro and Saya both hurried in just a second or two later, Ginjiro in the process of weaving wires together with his fingers into some sort of improbable net only possible thanks to the wonders of chakra. But he swore that if he could get it around someone from both ends, it'd pull them up short. If he held them in place, then, in his words, "There should be a good opportunity to eliminate a threat."

With the fight being three on four, those first moments would matter a lot. The plan, so far as they had a plan for such an eventuality, would be to take down the others as quickly as possible to leave the legbreaker all alone. He'd still be dangerous, but with teammates to cover for him he'd be even worse.

So they waited, and Shizue felt as if she were filled with wires of the sort that Ginjiro had, as if she were a puppet, tense and ready for a fight. A puppet who puppeted other puppets. Only her heartbeat reminded her that she was alive, that if she failed at some junction, she could die right here. Right now.

But Shizue was a shinobi, and so she waited, and she watched. And they came.

[Opening Credits]

They arrived seconds later, all three of them: a man who'd been trapped, a woman with a slash across her eye, and Tatsuzo. They all headed for the waterline, but the woman was the one in the lead by just a half step. That's how she was the one to step over the trap.

Water suddenly tore upwards, slamming into her body with a pressure and force that would have killed a genin in a single hit. As it was she flew back, and Ginjiro stepped forward, throwing out the net of sorts, which weaved itself around the Jonin, as Ginjiro looked on with a look of intense concentration on his face.

Meanwhile Stinger leapt out at the other of the lesser Jonin, who just managed to block the attack with a frustrated grunt. Saya didn't yell, she just slipped up to him and began to hit him, pushing him back and away from Stinger before he could retaliate. Her stance was aggressive, her blows holding nothing back, and she cared nothing, or so it seemed, about her own defense.

Shizue was already moving through the handseals as the caught Jonin crashed to the ground, wrapped snugly in the wires, which had been strengthened by earth flow. It was startlingly easy to hit her, now that she was wrapped up, with her Wall of Sound.

The Jonin popped up, hurtling into the air, before Ginjiro dragged them back down yet again to slam into the ground just in time for Ryuko to race forward on all fours, opening her mouth, ready to attack.

No mercy necessary.

Out came hot embers, because anything more might kill the helpless… the helpless Jonin.

It was quite a feeling, even if it was driven by surprise and ambush, to think those words all in combination. It'd been a magic feeling even back when it'd been Emiko, somehow single handedly destroying an entire village's Jonin in a single night. Though all of their villages were so small now. The world was wide enough that everything existed.

The embers hit the Jonin, and she thrashed once and stopped moving with a groan. Shizue's fingers twitched, and the battle rearranged itself. Now it was herself, Stinger, Ryuko, Saya, Ginjiro, and then Emiko (still hidden) vs. just two Valley Nin.

But one of them was Tatsuzo. One of them was a terrifying legend, and this legend, this strange monster, let out a growl of annoyance and pulled out a scroll, cutting his fingers on a kunai and moving with exact precision to smear it across and pull out a half-dozen… devices.

It was hard to define them as anything else. They looked like they were built for limbs, but with bands that could stretch to a torso, and there was what looked like a hammer positioned among a small number of rather sturdy looking gears and joints. It was some sort of trap, and Tatsuzo finally spoke, "Is that the game you want to play?"

He darted forward, dodging Stinger with the practiced ease that reminded Shizue, gritting her teeth, that not everything would be as easy as taking down the other Jonin. At once, Shizue's attention was split again. She tried to keep Ryuko away from Tatsuzo, while Saya struggled against the male Jonin, who was forming handseals with one hand while blocking blows with the other. Which was… impressive, to say the least.

Equally impressive was the fireball that Saya just barely dodged, hair scorching as she shifted out of the way at the last possible moment. The fireball slammed into the ground and carved a path all the way to the water, where steam screamed up, providing cover for Emiko, in disguise, to pop out and shoot a shining, shifting jutsu at the man. It was wind, that was obvious, but super-charged, to the Wind Arrow what a pond was to a puddle.

And in the moment it swept into the Jonin with a rather sickly noise, Tatsuzo dodged a swing of Ryuko's mighty tail and attached the device to Ryuko's front-right leg. It began ticking the moment he did, and he laughed and charged after Ginjiro.

Stinger couldn't move fast enough, and everyone else was out of position as he hounded Ginjiro, the boy backing up in desperate steps, only to find his arm grabbed as he was yanked forward, and the second device, similar to the first, latched onto his arm.

...The Legbreaker, Shizue thought, imagining what a device that could shatter legs could do to an arm.

"Surrender," Emiko said, in a very different voice than usual, raspier and lower. "All of your allies have been taken out. You won't be killed. Your death has little value to us."

"And your deaths have great value to me," Tatsuzo said, with a careless sort of shrug as he dodged again, getting around Ginjiro's attempt to net him, and Stinger's attempted (and failed) launched kunai, which was deflected as if it were nothing.

Ryuko, the device on her leg still ticking, missed as well, and that's when Saya came up, taking a running leap, fist scraping against Tatsuzo's cheek as he shifted away.

Tatsuzo might even have felt a slight sting.

Everything had been thrown at him, and it had taken Saya leaping at the perfect moment to even hurt him.

...they definitely needed Emiko to do most of the heavy lifting in this fight.

Shizue couldn't quite feel the panic she should have, but… but.

Tatsuzo slipped in and slammed the device into Ginjiro's arm, stepping back and tilting his head.

That was when it happened. The trap on Ryuko snapped, and the leg shattered into a thousand pieces, and Ryuko almost toppled over, barely kept steady, the cracks spider-webbing up the shoulder, doing more damage than they had any right to.

If that happened to a human arm…

Oh. Oh no.

What does Shizue do?

[] Focus on fighting Tatsuzo, so that it happens less. Keep up the pressure with the two puppets.
[] Shizue knows traps, maybe she could serve as the person who gets the dang trap off, but if she does so, then her puppets will be unable to fight him, since she'll be too distracted. That'll put the pressure on Saya and Emiko to work all this out.

******

A/N: Sorry that this is so short (and I'm not fully satisfied with it), but it's something! Content has been made. Hopefully I'll be able to update next week as well.