Interlude: Hide and Seek
Tamako trembled as she fought to maintain the Hiding Like a Mole technique while holding her breath. Her strategy to avoid capture was simple: hide a meter underground and peak upwards every few minutes. But Tamako hadn't figured that long, repeated intervals of
not breathing would be
this hard.
C'mon! Rain ninja do this all the time in the field, Tamako thought, as if to give herself (and her tiny academy student lungs) a pep talk.
You can do it!
Tamako lasted another twenty seconds before hastily swimming upwards through the earth. She gasped and wheezed as her head broke through the topsoil. The Hiding Like a Mole technique broke as she surfaced, and Tamako squirmed as a bunch of gooey mud solidified around her legs, trapping her in the ground. Her heart raced as she struggled to free herself, sending small bursts of chakra to try to strengthen her limbs, to rip herself out, but the ground might as well have been quicksand.
Should have asked Sis to teach me chakra control exercises, Tamako thought. She knew that experienced ninja were able to increase their strength by molding their chakra reserves in specific ways, but the Amegakure Academy hadn't covered that yet, and her tutors were busy teaching her the finer points of earth ninjutsu…
A hand clamped down on her head and Tamako stiffened.
"There you are. Looks like I found you."
Tamako screamed.
The hand removed itself from her head. "Oh, I'm sorry, Tama. I didn't mean to scare you."
"Sis!" Tamako whined, turning her head to frown at her older sister—half-sister, but a sister was a sister in her book, especially when you only had one!—as she redoubled her efforts to free herself. "Can you not
do that!? You know that it freaks me out when you sneak up behind me like that."
Ameri let out a guilty chuckle. "I'm sorry. It's a tough habit to break. Are you stuck?"
"No, just give me a minute."
…
…
…
Drat! Tamako sighed in resignation and went limp. "Yeah, I'm stuck. Ameri, can you please get me out?"
"Of course."
Tamako grunted as a pair of arms firmly gripped around her midsection and gently pulled upwards. Slowly, her legs rose up out of the muck and into the air with two wet splorching sounds.
"Thanks," Tamako said. She pursed her lips. "How long did it take you that time?"
"Two minutes," Ameri supplied.
Tamako frowned.
Aww! That's not even a new record.
"Using that technique to hide underground was a very good idea," Ameri hastily added. "If you had a means to get an air supply— a jutsu, a seal, or even a hollow reed, for example— it would have been excellent." Sister paused for a second, which she normally did before dishing out some gentle criticism. "But it's important to keep in mind that jutsu like that can leave traces behind as you move, especially if you have only just begun learning how to use them. Be careful, as relying on something that you haven't practiced sufficiently can prove dangerous in the moment."
Ameri brought a cloth out from one of her many pouches and packs, and she brought it up to wipe at Tamako's face. Tamako grimaced slightly, but she allowed it. What kind of kunoichi wants to walk around with mud on her face?
Tamako's shoulders drooped down, and she nodded slowly. "Yeah, that… that makes sense. Maybe I should practice normally?"
Tamako blinked as a fingertip poked the tip of her nose.
"How about we take a break from hide and seek? We can get some lunch, and then ask Hyousuke to help you work on your chakra control exercises." Sis said, with a teasing half-smile plastered on her face. "Then, if you get stuck while practicing your earth ninjutsu, you can pull yourself out. How does that sound?"
She felt her lips twist into a small smile. "Okay."
o-o-o
Ameri darted across the dark rooftops of Amegakure's luxury goods district. Rain Country was not known for its particularly sunny climate, but even accounting for that, this particular winter evening was an exceptionally cold and stormy one.
Perhaps we might even get some snow fall, Ameri thought. It had been years since Amegakure had seen more than the occasional light flurry.
I can take Tama out later and play, if Father permits.
Growing up as Hanzō's recognized bastard child meant that Ameri had had a rather depressing childhood. There was a certain level of skill and ability that she was supposed to attain to be worthy of her father's recognition, from a political perspective and a social one. After a lifetime of constant training and missions, she had managed to meet those expectations, if only barely.
Her father, of course, was clearly disappointed by her progress, but he tried not to let it show all that much aside from the frowning and the unprompted training tips over dinner. Ameri couldn't blame him all that much. The legendary Salamander, for all his invincible martial abilities, wasn't perfect, and it wasn't like they taught a class on how to be an outstanding parent in the ninja academy.
I suppose I should be grateful he didn't turn out like his own parents, Ameri thought. Her paternal grandparents had force-fed Hanzō deadly poisons as an infant, apparently, and put her father through all manner of dreadfully dangerous training exercises as a child.
Though it would have been nice if mom had survived childbirth.
Ameri's gaze flickered back and forth across the streets as she jumped from roof to roof. It was their last round of hide and seek for the day. Once she found Tamako, they would head home, wash up, and eat dinner. It was likely that it would just be the two of them and Hyousuke, as it usually was, but father liked having the option of joining in when he could spare the time, so they ate at the same time every evening to better accommodate his wishes.
Their father had saved Hyousuke's life in the second war, back when he was a mere genin, and in recognition of the life-debt, the man had dutifully and faithfully served their family ever since. Hyousuke, now a jounin of considerable skill, spent many years of his life serving as a bodyguard-slash-babysitter for Ameri during her own childhood.
Now he provided the same service to Tamako.
Ameri's eyes flickered over to a particular noodle shop where a familiar ninja clad in a stealth outfit and Amegakure rebreather mask, was busy standing around making smalltalk with the owner.
Hyousuke.
So Tamako is close by.
Ameri was unashamed to say that she unabashedly cheated in the games of hide and seek that she and Tama played. While her stealth skills were excellent, her tracking skills were a far cry from those of a tracking specialist or a more senior field ninja.
Hyousuke, on the other hand, was usually far too stuck in his ways to play with the two of them in earnest, and so Ameri could usually find Tamako by searching for him instead. On the flipside, he usually got bored following Tamako around when it was Ameri's turn to hide, and so he doled out some helpful tracking advice. It wasn't bad practice, all in all, though Tamako generally gained the most out of the game.
There!
Ameri landed silently in front of a pile of storage crates in the rear of the storefront. She reached out with her hand, moving it slowly towards one particular box that looked as if it had been recently pried open and hastily closed. Ameri slowly placed her fingers down on the near side, adhered them to the wooden box with some chakra adhesion, before pulling her arm back to rip the crate open.
"Eep!"
Ameri smiled. "Found you."
"Gah!" Tamako yelled. The girl pouted angrily. "I told you to stop doing that, Ameri!"
"My mistake, sister," Ameri replied. Her lips twisted upwards into the ghost of a smile. "Honestly, I figured you'd expect it by now. I always fi—"
Ameri broke off as the air around them suddenly grew thick as potato stew. Ameri moved to grab her little sister at the unexpected sensation, but Hyousuke was already there by the time she could consider it, bursting through the back of the building in a shower of splinters and droplets of soup broth. The jounin grabbed Tamako with one hand, and tackled Ameri as he did so, picking her up with his free arm. The scenery blurred as Hyousuke leapt to a nearby roof and started darting across the Amegakure skyline.
The pressure thickened, and Ameri's gaze locked on the city's central Tower. A massive, monolithic structure made of concrete, carved stone, and metal plating, it loomed over the rest of the city like a disapproving parent.
"Hanzō of the Salamander, ruler of this land...you shall know my pain."
The voice echoed across the city in an amplified whisper. It was quiet, and yet it was heard everywhere.
What?
For one horrible, terrifying moment, the rain itself seemed to still, the droplets freezing in place as they fell through the sky.
The Tower of Amegakure exploded.
Quick interlude from me this week, bit busy juggling stuff.
Hotsprings won unanimously last voting cycle, so I'll see about advancing the plot somewhat next week with a chapter that gets us (most of the way) over there, if nothing else. XP payout from the last arc still to be determined-- probably get you that soon enough though.
The amount of voter participation the last couple cycles has been great! Y'all rock.
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