Kapitel 48: 10
Tale of the Setting Sun
Chapter 10: "Dark Clouds Approach"
When Naruto opened his eyes, he was momentarily disoriented by the glowing blue lights around him before he remembered where he was. They were somewhere deep under Sunagakure, in the midst of the maze of the second test. They had figured out how to get water, food, and had found shelter for the night. Now, they would have to decide how to fulfill the second set of requirements of the exam: Obtaining another team's number plate while protecting their own.
As he grew more alert, he was shaken out of his thoughts when his nose picked up the aroma of roasting meat wafted through the air. His stomach growled, and he got up, sniffing the air. Turning around, he saw Mayu sitting beside a small makeshift campfire; from the looks of it, she had prepared breakfast as they slept. Much of the color in her face had returned, and judging from the small smile on her face, she certainly felt better. She was currently turning several stone sticks skewered through meat and what looked like yellow vegetables over the flickering fire.
Naruto sat down on the ground besides Rai, who gave him a nod but otherwise – to his relief – made no indication of the conversation they had shared the previous night. Instead, sharing identical looks of gratitude as Mayu offered them their portions, they dug in. It was quiet for several minutes as they ate, watching the shadow of their fire dancing on the moss-covered walls.
Finally, Rai spoke up. "Now that we're rested and all," He viciously tore a chunk of meat off of his stick, "Ish shtime to shake outh some rootkies, yeah?"
Mayu frowned. "That's disgusting."
Rolling his eyes, Rai began to chew even more noisily than before.
Ignoring them, Naruto decided to dive straight into business. "It's been about thirteen hours since the test began, leaving us with just under 110 hours. We can either wait for the last two days, or strike fast and finish early. If we wait it out, it's likely that we'll get our choose of the pickings among the weaker teams still remaining."
"But the ones who still haven't passed at that point might be more desperate...more dangerous," Mayu pointed out, her pink face tinged with worry. "And on top of capturing another plate, we also have to start thinking about reaching the surface, right...?" Trailing off, she turned to Naruto searchingly.
It hadn't escaped his notice how Mayu had begun to speak up in their discussions; it was a welcome change to the wall he'd once felt like he was talking at.
"Desperation breeds desperate measures," he said. "So we should try and finish this quickly and early. And like you said" – Mayu's face brightened – "it'll be best to start mapping out the maze while keeping an eye out for enemy teams and booby traps. Every time the tunnels diverge, we'll mark the path we took, and if we come across it again we'll take the other path."
Sweeping sand over their campfire, they quickly concealed all signs of their overnight presence. Working under the assumption that Neji would have used his Byakugan to choose the best possible route, they then left the blue cavern through the same tunnel Naruto had seen the rookies go through the day before.
As the dimly lit pathway rapidly decreased in diameter, they were forced to walk closer together. Naruto felt Mayu shudder, and picked up their pace. Soon, however, they stopped, as the tunnel forked into two different paths: One widened out and sloped upwards, while the other narrowed and sloped downwards.
"So...which one will it be?" said Rai, eyeing the two paths. Mayu wordlessly edged towards the wider path, making her preference obvious. "Yeah, but...that's exactly what they'd expect us to take, right?"
Without responding, Naruto positioned himself directly in the middle of the fork and closed his eyes. He raised both of his arms – and then a moment later, opened his eyes. He began to head down the wider path, and motioned for his teammates to follow him.
"I can feel a slight breeze coming from this path," he explained when he saw the questioning looks on their faces. "The air from the other side is still, so it's likely a dead end."
They shared bemused looks but trusted his judgment.
However, while they navigated through the tunnels of the underground maze, they were forced to resort to a wide variety of tactics. Mayu sent out her bluebirds ahead of them, and they provided a constant stream of information, which, though limited, was helpful in sketching out their mental map of the caves. Rai kept a sharp eye out for signs of fights and scuffles as well as keeping track of which tunnels they had already went down. Meanwhile, when Naruto wasn't able to discern any difference between the wind currents of a split in the pathway, he sent out a shadow clone down one while they walked down the other.
After several hours, during which they made fast progress, Naruto suddenly came to a halt and winced. One of the shadow clones he had sent out twenty minutes ago had just fallen into a pit full of fat larvae before promptly dissipating. Shivering at the sensation of crawling all over his body, he narrowly almost missed the extra shadow that flickered behind them.
Without reacting or changing his expression, Naruto began to walk again. Raising his hand to brush a lock of his hair out of his eyes, he twitched his pinky. Glancing sideways, he made eye contact with Rai, who gave an imperceptible nod. Dramatically making groaning sounds, Rai slumped down on the ground.
"Man, I'm starving," he complained. "It's about time for lunch, isn't it? We've come pretty far, let's find some food now!"
"I agree," said Naruto, crossing his arms. "Let's take a break for now."
"Well, alright then," said Mayu. "I'll collect some vegetables, so how about you two get the moles?"
"Sounds good," said Rai, pulling out a kunai and twirling it in his hand. "C'mon, Naruto. Let's go find some...moles." At his last words, he jumped up and disappeared. A moment later, he reappeared at the opposite end of the tunnel, holding his kunai to the neck of a dark-skinned male genin.
At the same time, Naruto swiftly threw a shuriken up at the ceiling. The other genin who had been hanging above them, a stocky blond male, managed to avoid the shuriken as he scuttled down the wall to the ground. Without a look back at his teammate, he fled to the nearest hole and disappeared. Naruto didn't move, watching the hole expectantly. Several seconds later, there was a yelp of shock and pain from the direction the genin had ran to. The sound of something being dragged across rough ground reverberated through the hollow tunnel, and soon, his shadow clone emerged, dragging the unconscious genin behind him by his collar. The shadow clone tossed the body to the ground beside where Rai stood with the other struggling genin.
They tied the two genin together against a boulder, and as Mayu searched their bodies for their team plate, Naruto looked around the surrounding tunnels warily. Judging from their hitai-ate, they were from Takigakure, but it looked like they were just a two-man team. When he had first detected their presences behind him, he had thought that perhaps their third member was farther behind and acting as backup. But he couldn't detect a third presence anywhere, meaning that their third member was either too far away, or that they had somehow lost their third member. Naruto played with the idea that their third had managed to conceal their presence from him, but he dismissed that almost instantly; though poorly lit with ample shadows to hide in, these tunnels were far too narrow and cramped for anyone to continuously hide from him for this long.
"Where's your third? Is he waiting to ambush us, or what?" Rai voiced Naruto's thoughts, nudging the dark one who was still conscious.
The genin scowled ferociously, glaring at them through narrowed eyes. "Like I'd tell you little br...ow, ow!" He broke off as Naruto's shadow clone shoved him down with his foot.
Naruto kneeled beside the genin, and looked him directly in the eye. As the genin watched with horror growing in his eyes, he then pressed the tip of his kunai against the inside of the genin's fingernail, putting in just enough pressure to induce pain. "First it'll be your fingernails, and then your fingers...that is, unless you talk. Where is your other teammate?"
"Didn't you hear me the first time?" the genin spat at his feet. "You're not gonna get nothing outta – " he broke off and let out a howl of pain as Naruto thrust his kunai up. With a sick popping sound, his nail fell off.
"Naruto!" said Mayu, her face pale. She stepped forward, but Rai held her back. He looked a little green as well, but his jaw was set.
"That was just a fingernail," said Naruto softly. The genin's eyes widened, tears of pain leaking out. "Imagine how much more it would hurt if I did that to a finger."
"Alright, alright! She's not here, we ditched her!" he yelped. "We don't know where she is!"
Naruto stood up; he could tell from his body language that the genin was telling the truth – or at least, believed it. Swinging his kunai up, he hit the head of the genin with its blunt end, knocking him out. The genin's head crumpled down against his chest.
He looked up to see Mayu staring at him with wide eyes. Internally, he let out a sigh as he saw something in her face that he hadn't seen in a while – fear.
"Was that really necessary?" she asked.
"We're ninja, Mayu," snapped Rai. "This is what we do. Stop being such a baby."
Mayu didn't respond. Instead, she put the hood of her cloak up over her head.
Rai grabbed the team plate she had been clutching in her hand; the number 44 was engraved on it. He tossed it into the air, and then grabbed it before tucking it into his pocket. "Ha! That was easy."
Leaving the trussed up genin behind them, they silently walked through the dark tunnel while Naruto's shadow clone slunk back into the darkness to trail them. As Naruto watched Mayu stiffly move away from him, he felt his heart sink a little. He didn't feel any remorse for having handled the situation in that way; torture was a proven and surefire way of quickly retrieving necessary information. But he wondered if he should have held back for Mayu's sake.
It was unfortunate that despite her valuable skill of perception, she had always been the least desensitized of the three and the most averse to solutions to situations that required violence. Naruto sometimes questioned whether she was truly suited for the life of a ninja; as someone who clearly didn't have the heart or the stomach for a ninja's work, it was a wonder how she'd come into it in the first place. Not for the first time, he wondered what he would do if Mayu ever got in the way of a mission. So far, it hadn't proved to be much of an issue, but the missions that awaited them in the future could only be filled with more bloodshed.
Suddenly, Naruto came to a halt. In one sleek motion, he pulled out his tantō from its sheath as the memories of his shadow clone flooded his mind; it had just been attacked from behind. The last thing it had seen before disappearing was a flash of white.
Before he could let out a warning, a high-pitched voice called out from behind them: "Stop right there!"
Shock flooding his system, Naruto spun around, dropping into an offensive stance. Besides him, his teammates mirrored his actions. However, the genin that they saw remained calm and seemingly defenseless even as she casually walked towards them. She had short, spiky hair and curious orange eyes. Naruto's eyes flickered to the hitai-ate slung around her right arm; the waterfall symbol of Takigakure stared back at him. That, and judging from the way she was alone, she was likely the third teammate that had been abandoned by the genin they'd captured their plate from. Naruto's grip on the tantō in his hand tightened. His shadow clone hadn't even sensed her coming up behind him. He had thought that was impossible in such a closed space...
He could feel it in his bones: Despite her seemingly harmless exterior, his every nerve was screaming that she was dangerous.
There was something foreign about the girl that caused a chill to wrack his body: Foreign, and yet at the same time, somewhat familiar. But before he could puzzle over it further, his teammates sprung into action beside him. Rai released a barrage of shuriken at the girl, while Mayu's bluebirds shrilled, taking off into the air.
Dodging the shuriken, the girl picked up speed and began to run towards them. Jumping up over the birds, her hands blurred as she opened her mouth: "Hiden: Rinpungakure no Jutsu (Secret: Hiding in Scale Powder Technique)!"
Prepared to counter it, Naruto gathered his chakra into his lungs, his hands blurring through the signs: "Fūton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough)!" He blew, expelling a strong wind from his lips.
However, to his surprise, what came out of her mouth was something powdery that sparkled, lighting up the tunnel around them. Before Naruto could wonder at its purpose, it made itself clear as the powder rapidly brightened into an intense light akin to that of the afternoon sun, sending searing hot pain into his eyeballs. Rai howled in agony besides him, and Naruto shut his eyes reflexively. He heard the wind he had exhaled continue blowing through the tunnel, but it was too late – the powder had done its work. Opening his eyes, he could only see throbbing circles of yellow and orange that threw him off balance; he staggered.
"Shouldn't have done that!" said the girl. Judging from her voice, she was standing right in front of them, and yet, to his growing alarm, Naruto couldn't sense her presence at all.
"What the hell is this?!" Rai snarled. The intense white light was gradually dimming, but Naruto could still only make out, at best, several blobs around him.
"The name's Fū," she said. "That was my Scale Powder technique, but don't worry, the effects aren't permanent. Usually, anyways. Well, I'm just here to get my team plate back. So, which one of you has it?" Rai must have given himself away with an involuntary twitch, for the girl immediately pounced on him. "Ah, so you do!" There was a muffled yelp and a rustle of clothing. "Thanks. See ya laters, alligators!" There was a pause. "Or not."
His vision was restored enough now so that he could see a faint shadowy figure bouncing up and running away from them. Rai made to get up, but Naruto held out a hand to stop him.
Rai growled in frustration. "What is it?!"
"Don't," panted Naruto. "We're at a disadvantage right now. It'll be easier to obtain another team's plate than to try and attack her – it isn't worth the effort."
Rai let out another snarl of anger, spitting on the ground, but sat back down. "Damn that girl." Picking up a pebble from the ground, he flung it at the wall. "And that genin bastard. He lied to us! I'm gonna kill him!"
"I don't think he was," said Mayu quietly. "They were probably traveling separately."
"Why the hell would they do that, when she's got that technique?"
But none of them had an answer for that.
Once their vision was finally restored, they began to press forward again. However, Mayu soon stopped them as her birds informed her that there was an impassable pit up ahead, and they turned around. As they silently walked back along the same path, Naruto's mind buzzed over the recent unexpected turn of events.
He hadn't taken the exam seriously enough, obviously. The other team's plate had initially been as easy to capture as expected, but they'd barely had time to even look at the number before it'd been taken back by that girl – she'd said her name was Fū. He hadn't been able to gauge her offensive ability, but she'd exuded a kind of confidence that only came with years of experience. Naruto had chosen not to follow her, explaining it to his teammates that their time would be better spent hunting down other teams, but he had to wonder – had it been influenced by doubt...by fear, at all? He didn't doubt his own abilities. He believed that in a direct confrontation, he could take the girl down so long as he avoided her strange powder.
Nevertheless, something about her unsettled him.
With Rai still fuming and Naruto lost in contemplation, Mayu was the first one to spot the obstacle in their path. She let out a small 'oh!' of surprise, and stopped. Returning to his senses, Naruto peered ahead at the dimly lit path, and saw the two genin they had left behind still tied to the boulder. From the way they were sitting, he could tell that the blonde – the one he had knocked out – was still unconscious. However, the dark-skinned one that Rai had handled was now awake, and glared at them hatefully. A trickle of blood had dried halfway down his face.
"Did she not see them or something...?" muttered Rai, walking over and nudging the blonde experimentally with his foot. He turned to the dark-skinned genin. "Oi, did your third teammate pass by?"
"That...thing's not a teammate of mine," the genin said coolly. Despite his obvious anger, he seemed more level-headed and in control than his teammate.
Rai scratched his head. "Well, she took your team plate back from us," he confessed. "Wouldn't it have been logical for her to have freed you guys while she was at it?"
"Monsters aren't logical."
"'Monster'?" repeated Naruto. He noticed Mayu stiffening in surprise beside him, but ignored it. "What do you mean?"
The genin looked up directly at Naruto, and for a moment, he thought that the genin wasn't going to respond. Next to him, the blonde genin suddenly twitched, his eyelids fluttering as they struggled to open. He let out a low moan.
The genin's features twisted into one of utter loathing, and his eyes burned with a look that Naruto somehow found familiar. "She's a jinchūriki."
"What's a jinchūriki?" asked Rai.
Just then, the blonde jerked and his eyes snapped open. Looking around wildly, he spotted Naruto standing by with his arms crossed and flinched. Gradually, as he took in the scene, a look of horror began to dawn on his face.
"She's got a monster sealed inside of her...she's Takigakure's weapon," explained the genin. Upon hearing his teammate, the blonde's head whipped back as though he'd been slapped.
"Mushimi! What're you doing?!" he hissed. "That's a village secret...and what about the plan?!"
"I don't care," the genin, Mushimi, growled. "That thing killed my parents before they sealed it away. I want it dead. And I have my doubts about the plan."
The blonde's mouth dropped open. "I know how you feel! But remember what Haike-sensei said to us about telling anything to outsiders! Do you even realize what you're doing right now?!"
"If it means I have to betray our village, so be it." The conviction rang loud and clear in his voice.
"By monster...what do you mean?" asked Naruto slowly.
As Mushimi opened his mouth, the blonde genin struggled in vain to release himself from his bindings. "Shut up! Mushimi!"
"A tailed beast. The Seven-tails," said Mushimi, glaring up at them. "So go tell your village and your Hokage. Go tell them that Takigakure's raising up a weapon, in order to become one of the five great villages. Come and destroy it for us."
1/21/17: Edited.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein