Chapter 682: Moving Along
- Location
- USA
About a month ago…
At last, her indecision had left her immobile as the icebergs steadily closed around her, cutting off her escape routes one-by-one until she was doomed to bleed herself against their jagged edges to make the narrowest escape she could.
Idiot child. Was she so selfish that she could only conceptualize her own suffering? People were going to die today.
At last, Akatsuki had fulfilled their promise to ensure that Hazō would complete no further dimensionalism research, that he would not be a competitor to their ultimate ambitions. After months of uncertainty, her decision to come on Hazō's mission was finally validated. Naruto's words, filtered through Noburi, filtered through Hazō, were insufficient to the situation – she longed to know if Akatsuki had asked about Asuma and the death of Isan and prayed that they had not – yet they were sufficient to force her to action.
Soon, the team would travel through hostile territory. She would need to travel and protect them on the Human Path. She could not afford to spend the majority of every day on the Seventh Path with her tessera and the innocent pangolins of Chūkū.
She needed the assignment to end in order to earn her superiors' approval and leave for days or weeks. The hyenas were raiding, not engaging. If she left, they would only grow more aggressive. She needed to stop them.
In their planning, she and Snowflake had granted themselves a little time to plan out the engagement of their dreams. In the event that none of the hyenas possessed ninjutsu capable of threatening her aerial position, and none of them were capable of reliably evading Hazō's Goo Bombs, and she was somehow able to persuade her tessera that they should leave alive the captured hyenas that had cost so many pangolin lives, then perhaps she might be able to escape today still holding the dubious honor of never having killed a sapient being with her far-too-bloodstained hands.
So, she had summoned Snowflake (two of whom elected to be Moonlight and Prism) and waited for the inevitable attack.
The signal had sounded. The hyenas had attacked from the east, but her preparations meant they took only one pangolin life (and how pitiful that she measured the life of an innocent as 'only' one) before they fled before Snowflake's charge. Kei followed them on skywalkers. The tall grass of the valley betrayed their steady retreat back to their den, and her cautious signals brought Snowlake and her tessera gradually forward.
Her hope of an ambush was foiled when she saw their den. The hyenas had noticed her obvious approach and had initiated combat preparations. Sparks of light came from below, betraying their active ninjutsu, while several of them were pacing and growling in the direction of the approaching pangolins. She counted ten.
Kei waited until Moonlight and Prism were by her side, high in the sky beyond the reach of all but the longest-range ninjutsu (and farther than any of the hyenas were willing to chance throwing their attacks). The pangolins took position south of the Hyena camp, while Snowflake would flank north on skywalkers, in the hope that any hyenas fleeing Kei's aerial onslaught would run right into her waiting Goo Bombs, rather than into the pangolin wall.
The air sat still in the slowly falling dusk. Perhaps they would not even smell Snowflake's position.
Kei was stalling. The hyenas' ninjutsu surely had a timer. They still thought they would win the fight, so were willing to stand, but if she waited too long, they would break into the grass and simply resume their attacks tomorrow. Her team could not afford the time that would cost. Worse, they might attack and overpower her tessera. Whatever their positions on Pantsā's war, they had been placed in her care, and her plan would endanger them if she chose not to play her part.
She nodded. It was time.
"Pangolin Clan Technique: Ghost Scales. Wind Element: Cloak of the Wind God."
Kei, Moonlight, and Prism grabbed a tagged kunai each and released their skywalkers, starting to fall, and the hyenas howled. Three throws whistled in an equilateral triangle to cover the hyena cackle, then moments later, the rushing wind around her turned into silence as her Banshee Slayers activated to cover the howling Banshee seals below, and cyan goo exploded outwards across the hyena formation.
Ninjutsu lanced outwards at her just as quickly, but she flipped midair and stuttered her skywalkers to adjust her trajectory, causing a sparkling bolt of light to pass her shoulder, while her sisters did the same to either side.
The initial onslaught of goo would trap only the weakest hyenas. Now, Moonlight and Prism threw their follow-up Goo Bombs into the densest part of the hyena formation, densely covering several as the rest dodged away from the strands that quickly got caught in the tall grasses.
Now in throwing range, Kei reached for a kunai. She had to make her choice. Continue with nonlethal methods, or execute the trapped hyenas before they threw more ninjutsu at her?
They were already preparing a counterattack. Their movements assured her that they would gladly take advantage of any indecision of hers. Could she stand to dodge ten hyenas' worth of ninjutsu until the very last was captured, if in fact she could capture all ten?
She closed her fingers around her chosen kunai, activated the seal, and threw. An explosion silently spread goo and three hyenas' viscera across the plains.
She had barely an instant to doubt herself before the counterattack came. She could not hear their howls of rage, but she felt her chakra coils refilling as their ninjutsu lanced through Moonlight and Prism, the fear of their final moments failing to disorient her as she ran through the air between the flames and crystals and starlight that, over and over, failed to kill her.
A hunk of fibrous material landed squarely on her back and Kei attempted to shake it off, only to find it stretching tendrils around her. She formed handseals as she felt razor-sharp thorns stabbing through both layers of her armor and into a muscle of her back, then her Gale Repulsion threw the animated killer shrub back to the ground.
She turned and saw Snowflake attacking a hyena, who dodged out of the way of Snowflake's Goo Bomb. The distraction had been enough though, and Kei sent a kunai through the hyena's back, though it somehow stayed standing. Kei felt another burst of chakra and confusion as one of the other hyenas killed Snowflake, then she was moving again.
How had she ever believed she could defeat ten hyena warriors alone with ninja skills as mediocre as her own? Her clones had burst in seconds and now it was all she could do to stay ahead of their attacks. She could try to climb up again, but then the hyenas would flee or attack her tessera or-
Allied attack ninjutsu, flying in from the south, distracting the hyenas. Her tessera had defied orders to move in to her aid.
Her panicked brain reacted. She had no easy kills, but she could throw Goo Bombs to make opportunities for her tessera. She threw into the closing hyena formation. She did not know how many she caught because the goo did not arrest their ninjutsu, and her world became light and pain an instant later. She suppressed her screams to dash away, ignoring the burning across her back.
She climbed and turned again, focusing through the pain on the battlefield. The hyena survivors, only three of them, were fleeing, while her tessera stormed forward. Moving on instinct, she armed and threw an explosive kunai, which pierced the leg of a hyena and promptly blew it off.
The hyena was alive, she realized, as the other two fled into the grasses.
"Leave it-"
A hunk of stone crushed the crippled hyena's head in. She could not spare even one defeated hyena.
Three died by her hand, her tessera had killed five more, and two fled. Kei could not tell what she felt, except for relief.
o-o-o
"...and that's why you were allowed to stay on the Human Path for the last month?" Noburi asked.
"Essentially," Kei replied. "I have far from discharged my obligation, given the embarrassment I brought the Pangolin Clan at Kago and the Conclave, but the annihilation of the Hyena raiding group has proven sufficient to protect Chūkū from further retaliation, so my leave has been granted. I suspect even that shall soon expire. The needs of a war are manifold, and the value of a summoner, even one so mediocre in combat as myself, will not grant me a long reprieve.
"Regrettably, I fear I will need to request offensive missions if possible. Morally palatable as defending innocent civilians from hyena onslaught may be, the time requirement involved in defending a location is unacceptable given my obligations to Team Uplift – and of course, given our team's specializations, my offensive capacity with adequate preparation time far exceeds the defensive capacity I provide. I fear I will have killed many more hyena by the time this month expires."
"I'm sorry you had to do that, Kei," Hazō said. "I'm grateful for the sacrifices you're making for the mission."
"Then do not misuse me," Kei said. "Our sidetracking has become a whole subquest, and we should return to the original topic: your plan for the next few days that you wanted to discuss."
"Right," Hazō said. "So, in terms of research, I was thinking…"
o-o-o
"I see," Cannai said. "And that is why you haven't visited the Seventh Path this last month. I don't mean to accuse you, Summoner. On the contrary, I am sorry you have been dealing with events that any dog would struggle with, and my pre-emptive apologies for any complications I may have created by foiling your Seventh Path meeting points. They had not caused any trouble yet, but I still chose to pre-emptively expel the Pangolin emissaries from my lands rather than let them gather intelligence or sow discord."
"Ah, you kicked Pandā out?" Hazō asked. "That'll make coordination between myself and Kei more difficult. Maybe I can sort out a different meeting point. As for the rest of it, it has been a struggle. Still, we've secured a temporary base that should make some of those challenges slightly more manageable. In the interest of operational security, I won't tell you any more about that unless you want me to."
"I suppose I do not 'need to know', as Kakashi used to put it," Cannai said. "Of course, I will not tell you the things you do not need to know in turn. In fact, even if Dog had received a missive from another summon clan about Human Path events, I would not be able to carry it to you."
"Are you implying that Dog has received a missive from the Human Path?"
"No, just reminding you that… ah, forget I said it," Cannai said. "I feel no qualms about telling you about purely Seventh Path events, nonetheless. Things have progressed as I foresaw and feared, and Dog is now engaged in war with Leopard."
"I see," Hazō said.
"I am well aware that you are fully occupied on the Human Path," Cannai said. "Nonetheless, a summoner's support would be invaluable to Dog, if you can afford to provide it. Instant communication across my territory would allow us to overwhelm the leopards strategically as well as tactically, for instance allowing you to lead strikes deep into enemy territory mere moments after their main forces have been confirmed to be elsewhere."
"I'm sorry Cannai, I just…"
Cannai gave a short affirmative bark. "It's fine, Summoner. I have asked Candoru, Cansaku, Canvass, Canun, and Cantelabra to form a temporary pack in an otherwise unoccupied section of my territory far from our borders with Leopard or Hyena, so that they will be prepared to be summoned at any moment. I have informed them all of your mission, and they have all taken the same oaths not to communicate information from the Human Path to you, and won't be fighting in our war. They all believe in your mission and want you to succeed, but be mindful of their morale. Candoru and Cansaku in particular are quite regretful that they won't be fighting alongside their packmates in the war.
"If you require additional dogs, let me know. I will attempt to convince them to take your oaths and join your fight on your behalf. Apart from these volunteers, I believe you have already asked our diplomats in Arachnid to take the same oath and accept sequestration by the Arachnid Empress far from her capital, so that only leaves the Horizon Chasers. Are they still in Toad?"
"That's right," Hazō said. "They were actually pretty unhappy about being forced to stay near the Toad Sages' swamp for my sake, but luckily for them, the Toad Sages are being… unwise, to be polite. I'll tell the Horizon Chasers that they're free to travel again, and hopefully that'll be enough of a mood boost that they'll take the oaths for me."
Cannai eyed Hazō. "Be careful with them, Summoner. They are still dogs, you know. They are not dolls for you to puppet around at your convenience."
"I know, Cannai. And I do want to say thank you for arranging all these resources for me on my behalf as I prepare for the fight against Akatsuki."
"You do not need to thank me for this, no more than you needed to thank me for fighting against the Dragons," Cannai said. Hazō glanced down at Cannai's foreleg, where the section of the Alpha's paw and foreleg that had been sucked into the Mirror Dragon was still hairless and pale. "The dogs of the new Dusk Willow pack agree with me that your mission is important and our duty to Dog requires giving you the tools you need to succeed. I am merely allowing them to follow their conscience, so if at all, you should thank them for their aid. Needless to say, their aid is not conditional on you helping in our war against Leopard. You should act as you think right, Summoner."
"No, really, thank you Cannai," Hazō said. "I think many summon bosses wouldn't have hesitated to pressure me into helping their clan in wartime, so I'm very grateful that I'm the Dog Summoner instead of any other clan's summoner."
"That is more to their detriment than to my merit," Cannai huffed.
"How is the war going?" Hazō asked.
"Poorly. We are decisively winning, of course, but for every advance of Dog clan warriors, a counterforce of Leopards pushes through somewhere in our lines to win territory back for Hyōhakken. I have been steadily claiming more and more of Leopard's skies, killing their forces with superior numbers and superior tactics, but it is not the rapid and overwhelming offense I had been hoping for.
"Hyōhakken has not been so foolish as to take the field himself. Instead, we clash our wills day and night trying to push our territory over the other's. Even now, I am dedicating most of myself to holding our skies in place."
"Is that okay?" Hazō asked hesitantly.
"It is easier to hold territory than to claim territory that is being actively held," Cannai said simply. "As to the experience of pushing ourselves back and forth across the sky… suffice to say, it is unpleasant. Extremely unpleasant.
"While Dog is winning our war, it appears that the limited support I can offer Hyena is insufficient. They are slowly buckling. Dog may be better at warmaking than Leopard, but Pangolin has far more experience than either of us. If Hyōhakken drags our war out to his own bitter end, then Hyena will very likely fall. Not quickly enough to save Hyōhakken, but it will fall nonetheless."
"I see," Hazō said. "That's… troubling."
"It is the world we live in," Cannai said, rising to his feet. "Now, go and fight your fight, and I will fight mine. May we meet again in calmer winds."
o-o-o
"Everyone, I think it's time we get out of here. We've been in this cave long enough, and while we don't know how long it will take Hidan to find us, we do know that he's on our trail. We're on a timer anywhere we go. We can try our best to make this cave defensible, but I don't think we can make it stand up to a dedicated assault by S-rankers – not right now at least – so we need to leave."
Mari sighed, looking at the heated pool in the grotto. "So recently did we meet, and so soon are we torn apart from each other…" she muttered.
"Isn't three weeks of hot spring vacation enough for you?" Noburi asked.
"It's never enough."
"We can come back eventually," Hazō said. "Refreshing the pool's effect will be useful to give us more spare chakra, and with the rest of the caves sealed off, we shouldn't need to fight nearly as many chakra beasts if we make a return trip.
"Anyway, I'm thinking we head over the mountains, across the river on the western border of Wind, and into the wilds outside of the Elemental Nations. Any thoughts?"
"How are you going to deal with the chakra beasts?" Yuno asked.
"The same as always," Hazō replied. "Monumental quantities of seals. I'm pretty sure there's nothing out there that's stronger than a Dragon, so they should all die against a three-layered skyslicer perimeter."
"Right, the beasts are manageable," Mari said. "It's not Bear, so we have some hope of surviving it. But they're still really strong. There's a reason that Sand hasn't tried to settle that area, despite it being pretty fertile."
"When there are areas in the Land of Fire without settlements, isn't that usually due to the density of chakra beasts, instead of how strong they are?" Hazō asked.
"Almost," Yuno said. "They go hand-in-hand. If you have more beasts, it's more likely that there are going to be strong ones among them. But that's for Fire. In Wind, they just don't have the same number of beasts as Fire does, so if the area doesn't have any people in it, I assume it's because they're pretty strong, right?"
"That's my understanding," Mari said. "And that's the area around the river. The farther we go into the desert beyond, the worse the beasts will get."
"They're still just beasts," Hazō said. "They're not intelligent. We can handle them. Plus, if they're that strong, they'll make a great deterrent against any would-be pursuers. As always, I'll defer specific details to our security expert," Hazō nodded at Kagome-sensei, "our chakra beast expert," Yuno smiled, "and our elite jōnin. If this is really going to be that hard, does anyone have better ideas?"
"With the Southern Isles unacceptable, and presumably not wanting to take the time to cross to the Eastern Continent, it may be acceptable to journey into northern Earth Country or to Snow," Kei said.
"As it's getting closer to winter?" Mari asked. "Veto."
"Mari, the mission comes first," Hazō said.
"Do you want me to freeze to death?" Mari asked. "How about the beaches on the south of Wind Country? The new capital is on the southeast end, but the area southwest of there is still pretty deserted, right?"
"With the loss of their eastern fertile strip to Rock and River in the Fourth World War, Hidden Sand has been taking efforts to develop the southern coastline, being one of the last few productive parts of their domain," Kei replied. "We could easily pick another anonymous point of desert, but even the relatively sparsely populated coastline may be too risky for the mission parameters, given that we are considering going outside the Elemental Nations themselves."
"Okay, so we can go north-"
"No we can't."
"-to Earth, Snow, or Lightning. We can take a massive trek out into the Eastern Continent, which would take us the better part of two weeks and be bad for Yuno's recovery. We could pick a patch of desert in Wind Country and just roll the dice on Hidan finding us. Or, we could try to go off the map."
"What's the big deal, guys?" Noburi asked. "They're just some stupid chakra beasts. We're Team Uplift, we've been killing overpowered chakra beasts since day zero."
Mari sighed. "Fine, we can give it a try. We can set up a ground base and a skytower base at first, and see how the monsters break through the defenses before we commit to spending any real time near the ground. Everyone needs to be on skywalkers at all times and ready to make a break for it if some overpowered monstrosity gets through the perimeter."
"We can use telescopes to observe the beasts when they attack," Yuno said. "Lots of them should be on the surface, so we can learn about their abilities before we actually need to fight."
"I have some new trap ideas for the little critters with the Scenery Clone Seal Array," Kagome-sensei added. "Let's see how they like it when they're getting boom-squished by traps they can't even see."
And with that, the team fell into planning their next adventure.
Day 1
Prep TR140 Unchained.
Prep Force Domes.
Prep Long Fuse Explosive. Hazō thinks that getting timers accurate to seconds or minutes over the course of several weeks is going to overinflate the project's difficulty, so he instead designs the seal so that the timer is set at infusion instead of activation time, and it is accurate only to the hours mark. Difficulty Result: Genin.
Day 2
Prep TR140 Unchained.
Prep Force Domes.
Infuse Long Fuse Explosive.
Hazō (Calligraphy): 47 + 3 (Dampeners) + 2 (prep) - 9 = 43
Hazō (Sealing): 53 + 2 (prep) + 9 = 64
Hazō completes the Long Fuse Explosive! Tentative mechanics: Once activated, this explosive tag occasionally flickers with light until a chosen time up to a month away, when it suddenly explodes. The duration is chosen at infusion time, and is only accurate to the hour mark.
Day 3
Prep TR140 Unchained.
Prep Force Domes.
Day 4
Prep TR140 Unchained.
Prep Force Domes.
Day 5
Infuse TR140 Unchained.
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 + 8 (prep) - 6 (timeladder down) - 9 = 43
Hazō spends a FP to reroll!
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 + 8 (prep) - 6 (timeladder down) - 3 = 49
Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 23 + 22 (crossover bonus from DoB-boosted Sealing) + 12 (Disciple of the Beyond) + 8 (prep) - 6 = 59
Hazō spends a FP to reroll!
Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 23 + 22 (crossover bonus from DoB-boosted Sealing) + 12 (Disciple of the Beyond) + 8 (prep) + 0 = 65
Hazō completes the TR140 Unchained! Tentative mechanics: Like previous time runes, but with +40% acceleration instead. Rune lasts for 6 months, and affects an AoE a kilometer in diameter centered on the rune.
Infuse Force Domes.
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 + 8 (prep) - 6 (timeladder down) - 3 = 49
Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 23 + 22 (crossover bonus from DoB-boosted Sealing) + 12 (Disciple of the Beyond) + 8 (prep) + 0 = 65
The progress continues, slowly but surely. Hazō feels pretty comfortable with this rune.
Day 6
DoB rest.
Prep TR140 Unchained.
Prep Force Domes.
Prep Long Fuse Explosive. Hazō thinks that getting timers accurate to seconds or minutes over the course of several weeks is going to overinflate the project's difficulty, so he instead designs the seal so that the timer is set at infusion instead of activation time, and it is accurate only to the hours mark. Difficulty Result: Genin.
Day 2
Prep TR140 Unchained.
Prep Force Domes.
Infuse Long Fuse Explosive.
Hazō (Calligraphy): 47 + 3 (Dampeners) + 2 (prep) - 9 = 43
Hazō (Sealing): 53 + 2 (prep) + 9 = 64
Hazō completes the Long Fuse Explosive! Tentative mechanics: Once activated, this explosive tag occasionally flickers with light until a chosen time up to a month away, when it suddenly explodes. The duration is chosen at infusion time, and is only accurate to the hour mark.
Day 3
Prep TR140 Unchained.
Prep Force Domes.
Day 4
Prep TR140 Unchained.
Prep Force Domes.
Day 5
Infuse TR140 Unchained.
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 + 8 (prep) - 6 (timeladder down) - 9 = 43
Hazō spends a FP to reroll!
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 + 8 (prep) - 6 (timeladder down) - 3 = 49
Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 23 + 22 (crossover bonus from DoB-boosted Sealing) + 12 (Disciple of the Beyond) + 8 (prep) - 6 = 59
Hazō spends a FP to reroll!
Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 23 + 22 (crossover bonus from DoB-boosted Sealing) + 12 (Disciple of the Beyond) + 8 (prep) + 0 = 65
Hazō completes the TR140 Unchained! Tentative mechanics: Like previous time runes, but with +40% acceleration instead. Rune lasts for 6 months, and affects an AoE a kilometer in diameter centered on the rune.
Infuse Force Domes.
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 + 8 (prep) - 6 (timeladder down) - 3 = 49
Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 23 + 22 (crossover bonus from DoB-boosted Sealing) + 12 (Disciple of the Beyond) + 8 (prep) + 0 = 65
The progress continues, slowly but surely. Hazō feels pretty comfortable with this rune.
Day 6
DoB rest.
A single explosive seal does not destroy an expended rune to the point where it is not recognizable. Twelve or so seems sufficient to grind it down into small enough pieces that someone inspecting the rubble afterwards probably wouldn't be able to tell that there was anything unusual about it.
Hazō isn't sure why the misterator didn't activate, and it's been a bit too long for the chakrascope to help diagnose what happened since there wasn't a sealing failure or anything major. He chalks it up to water damage.
Noburi is confident that he's collected enough data to recreate the pool's effect via a "conventional" MedNin + Technique Hacking route (though Hazō thinks he's overestimating how easy ninjutsu creation is). Noburi can't say for sure whether he has what you'll need for rune research. He's tried his best, but he can't predict how that research pathway will go. Given that Hazō has been too busy with runecrafting to learn medical ninjutsu, Noburi has started studying Hazō and Kei's shadow clone casts and doing [incomprehensible jargon describing some specific bloodline research methods] on himself.
Yuno's recovery is progressing well.
Kagome has started working on Banshee Fuckers. He reports that he's making slow-but-steady progress. He asks that you not adjust any departure timelines on his behalf, as he can always productively spend time scribing seals.
Hazō re-opens the caves with Earthshaping so that Kei and Tenten can search for the Otter Scroll. They do not find the Otter Scroll. Canvass also does not find the Otter Scroll. There is no sign of any chakravores, though there are a few smallish groups of magmaspines that are effortlessly eviscerated. Hazō closes the caves afterwards.
Mari reports no difference in her aura since arriving here, but confesses that she wouldn't be able to tell for sure, given that there's no one else around here with aura for her to test against.
Noburi and Kei personally dislike the idea of keeping drained ninja captives as chakra batteries on moral grounds, though they both acknowledge its utility to the mission. Noburi has some practical concerns: if never allowed to regain consciousness, he'd probably only be able to keep them alive for a couple weeks, and letting them regain consciousness regularly could potentially become dangerous, depending on what rank of ninja you've captured. More importantly, neither he nor Kei see a good way to transport them across long distances at anything resembling normal ninja pace. It could be a temporary solution to the chakra problem, if indeed you find an acceptable target, but it's not likely to be a permanent one.
XP Award: 18 + 6 (brevity) XP
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on .
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