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Author's Note: "Senpuu" means "whirlwind." "Kenjutsu" means "sword technique." "Kai" was a technique used in Episode 103. Most of the techniques I use in here are true to the series. There will only be a few I make up for convenience' sake. For example, "Mizutate" means "water-shield." Regardless, if I get something wrong no flames! There are about a hundred ninjutsu (ninja techniques) in the series---you can't seriously expect me to memorize them all . . .

Oh, and a "sigil" is a symbol usually referring to a rune inscribed in the shape of a whorl. It's not a Japanese word, but it's not one people see often so I thought I'd include a definition of that as well. A "haori" is a Japanese shirt that opens in front like a kimono but has a square flap tied across the opening. For reference, check out the red haori Inuyasha wears.

o o o RED BLOSSOM o o o

oo Chapter 2: Shikyo's Warning: The Touch of Death oo

o---O---o o---O---o o---O---o

After Kakashi's rather grim pronouncement, the four of them moved in silence through the forest. Predictions of imminent doom had a way of stifling conversation. The only sounds were the faint scratch of their shoes where they made contact with the tree limbs.

There were no public roads leading out of Konoha; they would have to travel a good twenty miles before they came to a town with an inn. Ninja villages weren't called "Hidden" without good reason.

Naruto, naturally, was the first to break the silence. He alone was in quite a cheerful mood, despite the nastiness of the previous night's dinner. Sasuke seemed to be in good spirits as well, but then Sasuke's one great ambition in life was to kill someone, so Naruto didn't really feel this counted.

"What town will we be spending the night in?" he asked Kakashi. "I mean, we are going to get some sleep at some point, right?"

Kakashi smiled wanly beneath his mask.

"There are a number of inns along the road toward the Water Country," he replied. "In case you're wondering, I happen to know the ones with the best food."

"Ramen?" Naruto inquired eagerly.

As if in response, his stomach gurgled loudly.

"Geez," Sasuke muttered without looking at any of them. "Your stomach alone is going to draw every assassin in the forest."

"Heh heh." Naruto grinned sheepishly, patting his gut with one hand.

Sakura, who was running a little ways behind the two boys, frowned at Naruto.

"You wouldn't be so hungry if you hadn't left halfway through dinner," she remarked. "Really, it was rude."

Naruto fell silent, and his impish face settled into an uncharacteristically serious look.

Kakashi stole a brief glance at him over one shoulder. The Jounin had been morose and withdrawn throughout the night; something troubling him beyond mere nerves. Sasuke had noticed it immediately, and was watching Kakashi like a hawk to try and figure out what he was hiding from his team.

Sakura, fortunately, was paying attention to the trees ahead of them.

"I see the road!" she announced, pointing toward an opening in the trees, beyond which there gleamed the promise of moonlight. "It looks like it's veering east; we might be near the fork."

Kakashi's head snapped up, and his eye narrowed as he peered in the direction she was indicating. Then, abruptly, he slowed and fell a little ways behind his three students. Sasuke slowed as well, his hand already flying to the kunai pouch strapped to his thigh. Kakashi shook his head, motioning the boy forward.

"What is it, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked, looking back at them over her shoulder. "Do you see someone?"

"I see no one," Sasuke said, sharply surveying the surrounding forest and grasping a kunai in one hand. "Not even a shadow."

"I don't see anyone, either," Kakashi agreed in a low voice. "But the eastern branch of the Aoite Road is thirty miles from Konoha. We should not be reaching it for another hour."

Sasuke's brow lifted.

"Then you mean . . . ?"

"We seem to have run into a genjutsu," Kakashi finished for him. "An illusion technique. It seems someone wants us to think we've already reached the road, so that we'll jump to the ground and travel more slowly.

"So how do we get out of it?" Naruto demanded, falling back to join Sasuke. "I'm not very good at genjutsu."

Kakashi gave them both a shove, propelling them forward.

"Stay ahead of me," he ordered, in a tone unusually sharp for such a lackadaisical man. "They want us to slow down, so it's likely that whoever it is will attack from behindus."

As the Jounin ran, his hands formed a quick seal that ended with his two index and middle fingers steepled in front of his face.

"Kai!" he cried in a clarion voice, and abruptly an odd sort of pulse radiated from his head in all directions.

The forest around them wavered and shifted. Some trees melted into shadow, while others spiraled into focus in different places. Looking at it made Naruto feel rather ill. To distract himself from his treacherous, roiling stomach, Naruto squinted into the darkness ahead, searching for some sign to confirm that this new view of the world was real.

"Sharingan." Both Naruto and Sakura glanced over at Sasuke, who was watching Kakashi with eyes gone red. After a few seconds of staring while the wheels turned in his pupils, the dark-haired Genin returned his attention to the trees ahead. He looked rather smug; he had just acquired a new technique.

"You'll have to help me with that one," Naruto entreated hopefully.

Sasuke didn't reply.

"In front of me," Kakashi reminded Sasuke, pushing his student in front of him yet again. "I can see that the illusion is completely gone now. I want you three to go as fast as you can until you reach the road. No looking back, whatever happens. Keep to the trees. Do you understand? When you reach it, wait for me there. Now go!"

Naruto and Sakura glanced back at the Jounin in alarm, but Sasuke surged on ahead of them, grabbing each of them by the arm and pulling them along with him.

"He said 'Go', so we go!" the Genin told them through clenched teeth.

Now that they had abandoned all stealth, the three young ninja tore through the forest at breakneck speed. Branches snapped against them, scratching their arms and legs and faces and cracking like a thousand tiny fireworks. The forest was darker now without the illusionary moonlight from the genjutsu, and they were scarcely aware of where they were going. Sasuke refused to let go of his teammates' arms, well aware of the fact that if any of them became separated they could end up lost or worse.

"Ow!" Sakura cried, and they were all temporarily jolted backward.

Because Sasuke was pulling her along, she had just run into a low-hanging branch, which had struck her in the face.

"Sakura, are you all right?" Naruto asked worriedly.

"Eh . . . yeah." Her voice sounded muffled, as if she were rubbing her face with her free hand. "We have to keep going!"

The two boys nodded assent, and then they were off again, eyes straining for some sight of the road ahead. Sasuke's Sharingan abilities apparently didn't extend to being able to see in the dark, but he led his teammates without hesitation to the northwest, as if he knew exactly where they were.

"Uh, Sasuke, I can't see a thing," Sakura admitted. "How do you know where we're going?"

Sasuke was silent for a while, but just as she was about to give up on an answer, he replied in a low voice, "I don't. I'm just following the same direction Kakashi-sensei was leading us, which seemed to be a straight shot to the road."

"Gah!" Naruto exclaimed, tearing at his hair with his free right hand. "Kakashi-sensei gets lost every morning on the way to the training grounds!"

Both his teammates turned toward the sound of his voice, wearing identical withering looks that none of them could see in the darkness.

"You mean you actually believehim when he says that?" Sakura asked him.

But Naruto's attention had just been diverted by something more important.

"A breeze!" he exclaimed, wrenching his left arm free of Sasuke's grasp to point directly ahead of them. "It's coming from that way!"

"I don't feel anything," Sakura said doubtfully.

But Naruto was sure of it now. The forest smelled like rich soil and tree bark and damp, rotting leaves. The scent from up ahead was cleaner somehow, like air that hadn'tbeen confined to a dark, stuffy forest for the past hour and a half.

"It's definitely there!" Naruto insisted. "My nose doesn't lie."

This was an odd thing to hear, even from him But Sasuke seemed to take it seriously.

"Shh," he told his teammates.

The three of them came to a halt atop a particularly wide branch. Sasuke flung out an arm to either side, preventing them from moving further. Naruto and Sakura listened with him, scarcely daring to breathe. They waited a long while, but no sound came.

"There's---there's nothing," Sakura said after a while. "They must have gone after Kakashi-sensei." She tried to take a step forward, but Sasuke's arm held her back.

"No, it's there," he insisted in a low voice. "I felt a breeze, just now, on my legs. That means we're definitely close to the road---we just can't see it."

Sakura took a step backward with a sharp intake of breath.

"Then this is . . . another genjutsu."

She couldn't see him nod, but Sasuke lowered his arm.

"That and the moon shouldn't have set this early," he added. "Someone's cast an illusion of darkness to keep us from reaching the road." Then he formed a quick seal and shouted "Kai!"

Once again, the world around them melted, but this time the darkness melted away to reveal a parting of the trees up ahead. Beyond that the moon shone down over a clearing of some sort---a road, in all likelihood. They weren't far away from it at all; roughly a quarter of a mile.

Naruto let out a sharp exhalation as something struck him in the neck.

"Naruto?" Sakura asked nervously. "What---?"

"Go!" Sasuke ordered.

At his sharp command the three of them sprang into motion, sprinting across the branches toward the clearing. Slender boughs whipped past their faces, but this time Sasuke wasn't holding them together and they had the freedom to dodge the worst of these. The darkness was no longer so complete; at various places ahead of them thin shafts of moonlight filtered down through the canopy.

"Almost there," Sakura gasped, her short hair fluttering behind her.

Sasuke happened to pass through one of the shafts of light, and suddenly the air was full of needles. A thousand gleaming points shot upward toward him from somewhere on the ground. He didn't have time to react, and they struck him multiple times in the legs and lower back.

"Sasuke!" Sakura cried as he stumbled.

She increased her speed and managed to catch him around the waist before he could fall. In the process, several needles sank into her calves, but they missed their targeted pressure points and she was able to keep moving. She slung one of Sasuke's arms around her neck and half-carried, half-dragged him with her as she went. Naruto, in the meantime, immediately dropped down into the lower branches, seeking out the hidden enemy. A rain of needles sang after him, like a swarm of silver hornets.

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted as he plunged into the darkness of the deeper forest. "Stay with us! Remember Kakashi-sensei's orders!"

But her cries fell upon deaf ears; Naruto could not hear her over the hiss of needles through the air. Torn between keeping the group together and proceeding to safety, Sakura hesitated, pausing atop a moss-covered bough. Abruptly, Sasuke half-turned away from her, freeing his arm from her grasp. He leaned out over the branch and formed the Seal of the Tiger with both hands. In her effort to keep a hold of him, the balls of Sakura's feet skidded across the damp moss. Both of them nearly slipped off their perch and fell, but fortunately Sakura already had a kunai in her left hand, which she immediately jammed into the wood as hard as she could and hung on for dear life. Her other arm was now hooked around Sasuke's waist to prevent him from plummeting downward over the thick side of the bough. After recovering from the sudden jolt, Sasuke raised the tips of his fingers to his lips and blew.

A helix of fire when spiraling down into the darkness below, driving it back and bathing everything there in flickering orange light.

Down near the forest floor, Naruto squatted on a massive tree root, surveying the area with the aid of Sasuke's illumination. On his way down he had landed on a low branch and then executing a twisting leap sideways. As his body corkscrewed in mid-air his chakra formed a vortex that deflected the majority of the needles away from his vital points. As he landed in a crouch on the balls of his feet, the tiny weapons sank into the trees around him with vicious staccato. Keeping his head bowed so that his face was protected from any subsequent assaults, Naruto drew a kunai from his pouch and formed a quick one-handed seal with his right hand.

As his left arm curved around and released the knife, it was suddenly multiplied tenfold in number, flying out in all directions in a deadly shower of his own. This was the replication technique, applied to weaponry. A sudden burst of needles from among the shadows of the trees deflected many of the kunai, and Naruto was forced to cover his face with both arms to keep from being cut. Yet even through the needles singing past his head he thought he heard the abrupt popping noise of a ninjutsu being dispelled.

'But I can't see anyone,' he thought in confusion as he peered between his fingers. The main draft of Sasuke's fire had already died, though some of the drier leaves nearby had caught fire and still cast a flickering, crackling light on the forest floor. Above him, Naruto could vaguely hear Sakura's voice, calling him back. But he elected to ignore her, setting his jaw and leaping off the root. He was determined to stop this hidden enemy from following his friends.

He began a slow, careful approach in what he thought was the direction the needles had come from, beginning to draw upon his greater reserves of chakra for Shadow Replication.

Then the darkness around him exploded, swallowing everything in a dizzying haze of flame and shrapnel. The shockwaves knocked him flat.

For a moment, Naruto thought he had gone deaf. He had landed hard on his back, and the impact had temporarily stunned him. Dimly he was aware that somehow the enemy had surrounded him with some sort of bombs, but at first this didn't make sense because there was no way such a large circle of bombs could have been planted around one specific area so quickly. He thought before that there had only been one attacker, because the needles were only coming from one direction at a time . . .

Then realization hit him, and he pushed himself upright: Kage Bunshin. The enemy had used Shadow Replication clones to plant the bombs; the sound he'd heard a moment ago had been the technique dispelling as the enemy fled to avoid the explosions.

Somewhat shakily, he pushed himself to his feet. The bombs had done their work; the forest immediately surrounding him was ablaze. The ringing in Naruto's ears faded a little, and he became aware of Sakura shouting his name from above. Hurriedly, Naruto clamored back onto the root and hoisted himself onto the nearest low branch. His first priority right now was getting off the forest floor, which was littered with dried autumn leaves and other materials that would be ideal for kindling. As he climbed higher, he could see Sasuke coming down to meet him, apparently having plucked the needles out of his legs. Further up in the tree, Sakura's pale face could be seen peering down at them both.

"Hurry!" she urged them. "We have to get away from here---if our enemy has allies, they'll see the light and be drawn right to us!"

Both boys glanced down at the forest floor, which was carpeted with tiny tongues of flame.

"Oil!" Sasuke exclaimed. "The needles were soaked in oil. That's why the fire isn't dying."

Naruto caught hold of Sasuke's hand, and the other Genin pulled him up onto the next branch. Then the two of them gathered chakra in their feet and began running up the tree trunk toward Sakura. Behind them, flames were beginning to lick at the roots. Both boys glanced downward over their shoulders something below caught fire with a loud crack.

"The tree's bark is thick," Sasuke said, looking sideways at Naruto. "It won't burn out from under us." Then, because he read hesitation in Naruto's expression, he added, "We can't waste time with putting it out. We have to obey Kakashi'sorders. We must find the road."

Then Sakura's scream echoed down from above.

Both Genin turned their faces upward in alarm. Sakura's face was no longer visible over the side of the bough; she was gone.

Naruto and Sasuke raced upward with renewed speed, all thoughts of flames and orders supplanted.

Upon reaching the branch, they found a stranger standing there, waiting for them. He stood a little ways back from the edge. They couldn't see him clearly because of the shadows, but he clearly wasn't Kakashi. In a flash, Naruto had a knifein each hand. Sasuke didn't bother reaching for his kunai pouch this time; his hands moved swiftly, beginning to form the seal for Chidori. Then he clasped one hand around the wrist of the other, and electricity began to gather in his palm. The stranger stepped back a pace, eyeing the lightning playing about the Genin's fist, but he made no move to defend himself.

"Uchiha Sasuke," he said softly.

Sasuke froze.

"How do you know me?" he demanded in a low, dangerous tone. The electricity in his palm flickered distorted shadows across his face.

"Sasuke." Sakura stepped out from behind the man, who had been blocking Sasuke's view of her. "This is Arashi Shikyo of the Hidden Village of Rain---the man we're supposed to be meeting."

Naruto had just finished climbing onto the bough, but the man ignored him. His sharp gaze traveled from the electricity in Sasuke's hand to the forest below, where the fire was still blazing healthily.

"The road isn't far," the man explained. "I heard the explosion and knew that it was your party being attacked."

Sasuke didn't seem convinced; the jutsu in his hand didn't fade. His gaze traveled slowly between Sakura and the stranger, and the Sharingan stained his eyes crimson. He was trying to gauge the truth of the man's story.

"He's not lying," Sakura reassured him. "He just startled me at first."

Slowly, Sasuke lowered his fist, and the light died.

"We don't have time for full-fledged introductions," the man told them, brushing past Sasuke and Naruto to peer over the edge of the bough. "The bombs and the needles are a terrorist technique used by the assassins to drive their targets into positions of vulnerability."

"Vulnerability?" Sasuke asked, frowning down at the fire below. "How could we possibly have been any more vulnerable than we already were, running across the branches in the dark?"

"You don't know the enemy like I do," the man snapped. "If they had succeeded in luring you to the forest floor, and I had not come, the three of you would be dead by now. Now go! Do not engage the enemy, do not let them touch you!"

Naruto, who didn't need to be told twice, grabbed Sasuke by the sleeve and pulled him along. Together the three of them raced toward the clearing ahead. No more needles hurtled toward them as they went, but behind them the stranger appeared to be preparing to do battle with someone. When Naruto glanced over his shoulder he saw some sort of liquid gravitating toward the man's upraised fist from all directions.

'A water technique?' Naruto wondered.

Then they passed beyond range of view.

By the time the three of them reached the clearing, they were breathing hard---though more from tension than from exhaustion. The road stretched out from east to west; apparently this was well past then eastern fork. The moon shone down on the long stretch of dirt, fading it to gray.

Standing in the shadows of the trees at its opposite edge was Kakashi.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura exclaimed in relief.

Naruto made ready to leap down from the branches, but Sasuke caught him by the collar and held him back.

"Don't go," he warned in a low voice, his eyes on the man standing silently on the road. "That isn't Kakashi."

The man's head was turned upward toward them; he was obviously aware of their presence, but he made no move to cross the road and approach them.

"Someone using the Transformation Technique?" Sakura whispered to Sasuke, who nodded but didn't take his eyes off the impostor.

'If he's wearing Kakashi-sensei's face he must've seen him before,' Naruto thought worriedly, fingering the kunai in his hand. 'Why hasn't Kakashi-sensei come yet? He can't have met this guy in combat . . . and lost?'

The three Genin crouched tensely atop the tree limb, waiting for the enemy to make his first move. The man standing in the shadows opposite them stood utterly still, and made no move to attack.

After several moments had passed like this, Sasuke made a vague noise of impatience and drew his shuriken forth from the pack on his back.

"We're going to attack," he told his teammates grimly. "He probably has needles, and bombs. Be prepared for that." Then he shifted his weight on the branch, preparing to descend.

"Wait!" Sakura tugged at his sleeve. "Shikyo-san warned us that the enemy wanted to lure us to the ground. There must be something dangerous about engaging them at earth-level!"

Sasuke's dark eyes narrowed, and he jerked his sleeve free of her grasp. Slowly, he pulled back the arm holding the shuriken in preparation to throw it in a curve toward the man below. The impostor clearly saw what the Chuunin intended, but still he made no move.

However, before Sasuke could begin any sort of attack, another man wearing Kakashi's face stepped out from among the trees. He appeared a little ways down the road from where the three of them had emerged; if he was the real Kakashi then their paths had not diverged drastically at all. Naruto thought this was somewhat suspicious, because they had been separated for so long and also because both Kakashi and his students had been attacked and doubtlessly driven off-course. Sakura seemed to be harboring similar suspicions.

"Sasuke . . . is that Kakashi-sensei?" she asked nervously, drawing eight kunai at once between her fingers.

The Sharingan's wheels turned in Sasuke's eyes, and he frowned.

"It is."

On the road below, the impostor's gaze lowered and turned toward his new opponent, who was approaching him slowly and cautiously. However, as Kakashi drew nearer, his students could see that caution wasn't the only thing slowing him down. He was breathing hard, and some of his clothing was torn, though he still carried his pack of supplies strapped across his back. Both sleeves of the dark green shirt he wore were soaked through with what appeared to be blood.

His Sharingan eye was uncovered.

He glanced up briefly at his students, crouched in the tree, but then his gaze returned to the impostor.

"You three---stay where you are," he called up to them. His voice sounded very tight and strained.

The impostor waited in silence as Kakashi approached him. There was nothing mocking about the man's lack of response---he was not implying by his stillness that Kakashi wasn't a worthy opponent. Rather, his gaze upon the Jounin was fiercely intent, like a predator gauging the strength of its prey. It was a look that Sasuke understood.

"He's going to let Kakashi attack first," the Genin murmured, watching them. He had not lowered the arm holding the shuriken.

Slowly, but with surprising steadiness for someone whose arms were drenched with blood, Kakashi reached one arm behind his head and drew something forth that had been strapped to the underside of his pack. It gleamed in the moonlight as he brought it up to bear in front of him: a short sword. Now that his concealed weapon was free of its scabbard, he let the pack slip from his shoulders and fall onto the dirt behind him.

His three students watched in silence, mystified. Never during training or during any of the battles they had shared had they seen Kakashi favor using any sort of weapon---and it seemed particularly odd now because his Sharingan eye was exposed. For someone dubbed the "Copy Ninja," the Sharingan alone should have been enough; the sword seemed superfluous and unnecessary.

But Kakashi gripped the sword's hilt with both hands, turning the blade horizontal and level with his opponent's heart, clearly intending to attack with it. Slowly he circled the impostor, moving around the man in an ever-tightening spiral. The man stood utterly still even when Kakashi circled behind him, clearly refusing to let his opponent goad him into attacking first.

A cold breeze stole along the road, stirring the leaves that lay at the feet of the two men.

"Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto," he called sharply, without taking his eyes off the enemy. "If I should fall, you'll go straight back to Konoha. No hesitating. If I fall, you flee. From now on, any enemy that you meet, you must not let them touch you. Understood? Not even a finger. And you must not use ninjutsu against them." None of his students could see his face; his white hair fell across his brow, hiding his eyes in shadow.

"What are you---?" Sakura began, but at that instant Kakashi launched an offense.

"Konoha no Senpuu!" he cried, in a voice that rang through the forest.

Then the clearing was full of wind.

Leaves blew downward from the surrounding trees, rustling loudly as the wind snapped them off the branches. The three younger ninja were forced to press themselves tightly against the trunk of the tree they were perched in, for the wind was strong enough to topple them from their eyrie. It shrieked and whistled between the branches, drawing every bit of debris into its current. At this speed the leaves were razor-sharp, and they were forced to look away from the battle to cover their faces and necks as well to keep from being slashed in vital areas. The hiss of blowing leaves and the buffeting wind was nearly deafening. The moon and sky were temporarily obscured as the clearing became filled with a whirlwind of leaves.

When the main stream of debris has finally subsided, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were able to uncover their eyes and peer down into the maelstrom below. Amid the tornado of leaves, they could see that the impostor had finally moved to defend himself. The illusion he'd cast to give him the Jounin's appearance had melted away, but they couldn't see his true appearance clearly. All that they could make out was that he was tall and lean like Kakashi, and that he moved with equal swiftness. In between the leaves the moonlight glimmered off of Kakashi's sword, and then disappeared as he swung it. The technique the Jounin was using involved swinging the sword in a complex series of arcs on either side of his body. His hands moved so fast that only the blade could be seen when it caught the light. His opponent, on the other hand, did not seem to be using any offensive techniques at all. He seemed to be devoting all his energy to avoiding being struck by the lightning-fast blade in Kakashi's hand, using what appeared to be some kind of liquid shield about his hands and arms.

"He isn't fighting back" Sakura murmured wonderingly. "If he was that weak and he knew Kakashi-sensei's strength, why on earth did he pick a fight?"

"Biding his time," Sasuke replied, one hand clenched around his shuriken as he watched the fight. "He's waiting for an opening . . . But for what?"

Kakashi's objective, on the other hand, seemed to be to kill the man outright. Every second the sword sliced near one of his enemy's vital areas. Oftentimes it hit, though the man dodged with lightning speed surpassing even the Jounin's and avoided being struck down. He'd even abandoned the Konoha no Senpuu technique to concentrate on swordplay, and the leaves around him swirled lifelessly to the ground. Naruto watched the battle with a scowl.

'The impostor doesn't seem to care if he's hurt,' he thought.

"I see," Sasuke whispered excitedly. His black eyes opened wide as if in response to a sudden epiphany. "I see! Kakashi said 'you must not let them touch you.' He's using only the sword to fight, because he's trying to avoid being touched by his opponent."

Sakura glanced over at him.

"But why isn't he using one of his ninjutsu? Some of his most powerful techniques are long-range."

Sasuke shook his head.

"He told us not to use ninjutsu. There has to be a reason. At any rate, he must have met other shinobi in the forest and used too much chakra already. You saw him; he looks exhausted."

'Who are these people?' Naruto wondered. 'These are the assassins we'll face?' It took a truly deadly opponent to exhaust Kakashi.

"A hit!" Sakura exclaimed suddenly, taking an involuntary step closer to the edge of the branch.

True to her word, Kakashi had scored what appeared to be a mortal wound. The Jounin's opponent had finally made an offensive move, lunging for Kakashi with a sudden flash of multiple blades in his right hand. Yet none of the blades touched Kakashi, for at moment the Jounin altered the angle of his sword's arc mid-slash and instead caught the enemy straight through the chest. The man let out a cry of agony; it was a serious blow. Straight through the lung, next to the heart and its descending arteries. The man's right hand released the blades between his fingers and flew to the length of the sword embedded in his flesh, as if attempting to block the blow out of reflex even though it was already too late. Then the liquid shield around his arm flowed from his wrist to the sword, wrapping itself around the blade as if he intended to pull it out.

'No,' Naruto realized in dawning horror. 'Not to pull it out---he's using his Mizutate jutsu to pull the sword in . . .'

As if in confirmation of Naruto's observation, the impostor's hand closed around the blade and began pulling the sword deeper into him with both flesh and chakra. That the sword's razor-sharp edge was slicing the flesh of his hand to ribbons did not seem to deter him. He knew he was a dead man, and it seemed he had only one thought now: to take his opponent with him to the underworld.

His right hand and its Mizutate gripped the sword . . .

. . . but his left hand was free.

Kakashi realized it too late. The enemy's Mizutate spiraled up the sword and over Kakashi's own wrist. Kakashi tried to release his hold on the hilt, but he could not break free of the liquid. His concentration was broken. With his free left hand, the enemy was working a very swift and complicated one-handed seal. Naruto stared at it in amazement; the man's hand moved so fast it was nearly impossible to see his fingers.

Even from twenty feet up, Kakashi's students could see the sweat streaming down the sides of their teacher's face. He reached for his kunai pouch, but for some reason it was gone---it had evidently been torn from his pant-leg at some point in the forest.

Kakashi had been rendered weaponless.

In the moment that followed, everything happened at once. Ignoring the protests of his companions, Sasuke leapt from the branch with a muttered curse, hurling his shuriken as he jumped. The enemy completed his one-handed seal and quickly dipped the tips of his fingers in his own blood, which stained the sword-blade in front of him. Sakura gasped in fear; there was something eerily precise about the dying man's attack that suggested a great deal more power was being put into this strange jutsu than any normal attack. Sasuke's shuriken cut through the winds of Kakashi's Konoha Whirlwind jutsu, slicing across the enemy's throat. Kakashi half-turned and tried once again to pull away from the man's shield jutsu and caught sight of Sasuke running toward him, kunai in hand. The enemy's head turned quickly as well even as the wind spattered blood from the wound on his throat in all directions. His pale face turned directly toward Sasuke.

"No!" Kakashi shouted, going wide-eyed with alarm. "Sasuke, go back!"

But the enemy's face turned away from Sasuke just as swiftly, and his hand shot forward toward Kakashi's right arm, which was held fast to the sword by the Mizutate. Clearly his intent was to attack while Kakashi's attention was temporarily diverted. Even if the white-haired Jounin had turned away from Sasuke a split-second sooner, he would not have been able to free himself quickly enough to dodge the attack.

There came a sickening crunch of bone, and then a fountain of blood spiraled downward amid the falling leaves.

o---O---o o---O---o o---O---o

A Valley Somewhere Northwest of Konoha; Exact Location Unknown

A lone man stood within the sentry tower atop the high walls, gazing down into the forest as the moon set behind the hills. He stood in the shadows beneath the tower's thatched roof, for at the angle where the moon now hovered in the sky the light would cast a glare upon the lenses of his glasses, and he preferred being able to see the forest clearly. He was waiting for a party of important guests to arrive---the sort who would not take kindly to being ignored or delayed in their business here.

The sort whom it would be dangerous to ignore.

A cloud passed before the moon, and then slid onward into the night. When it had passed, a group of nine shinobi stood silently in front of the wooden gate below. The man atop the sentry tower spotted them immediately and, after hastening to the inner edge of the wall, leaned over the railing and signaled to the watchmen posted at the gate. The group outside stood patiently and utterly still as there came a grinding of pulleys from within. Then the gates swung open with a groan of wood as the watchmen rolled the weights aside.

The young man descended from the walls, ignoring the ladders positioned nearby and simply leaping the twenty feet to ground-level. He moved swiftly between the open gates and strode into the midst of the visitors, who watched him in expectant silence. All of them wore voluminous black capes over their shoulders, which heightened the impression that they were a group of stone statues, planted in the forest just beyond the Village gates. The young man surveyed them with sharp eyes, crossing his arms over his gray-clad chest. Given the strangeness of recent events, he had expected them to come here bearing accusations against his master. He had expected them, but nonetheless they had come solely of their own authority, and their presence here was uninvited.

"You sent word that nine would be coming," he told them. "But I see only eight."

One of the cloaked figures stepped forward, addressing him with a frown.

"We met with some . . . heavy interference in the forest. One of our numbers was killed." He nodded toward the open gates. "We will speak with Orochimaru on this matter." The man paused, and then added in darker tones, "He has muchto answer for."

The young man nodded, and a sly smile crept across his lips.

"Well, then," he said, addressing the group as a whole. "Come, representatives of AkatsukiMy master awaits your council." He bowed low, and the dying moonlight flashed in the lenses of his glasses. "The Otokage wishes me to bid you welcome . . . to the Hidden Village of Sound."

o---O---o o---O---o o---O---o

The Aoite Road, Thirty Miles Southeast of Konoha

The leaves borne upward by Kakashi's whirlwind still sank slowly toward the earth as the swift rush of air faded and dispersed. Through the soft rain of debris falling around the two warriors locked in combat, Naruto saw the enemy's outstretched fingers had been stopped inches from Kakashi's wrist. A sword protruded through the enemy's wrist, at the critical joint where the veins converged; this was what had stopped him from touching Kakashi.

"Who---how---?" Sakura stammered, but Naruto had already jumped down from the tree limb after Sasuke, and was heading pell-mell for Kakashi. Then she happened to glance down and saw the man who had just entered the clearing below her.

"Kakashi-san! Move away from him!" Shikyo called in a low, urgent tone.

Kakashi did not take his eyes off the enemy in front of him. The man stood frozen in surprise, still grasping Kakashi's blade with his right hand. His eyes upon Kakashi were wide and intense---crazed, like a man staring into hell itself. For one horrible moment, Naruto thought he was going to try to reach Kakashi again to finish the attack. Reaching into his kunai pouch, the young Genin pulled out three knives, which he slipped between his fingers in preparation to throw.

Sasuke, however, appeared to have abandoned all inclination to attack. The dark-haired Genin had come to a halt the instant the sword struck the enemy's wrist.

Though the impostor's eyes were trained madly upon Kakashi's face, he was a dead man on his feet. A horrid gurgling arose in his throat, which Sasuke's shuriken had slit, and a gout of blood fountained over his lower lip, washing down the front of the black vest that he wore. As the enemy's dying breath dyed his chest crimson, the Mizutate jutsu binding Kakashi's arm to the sword trickled to the ground. The impostor sank to his knees, one hand still outstretched toward Kakashi, who backed away, lowering the sword. His shield fell away from his arms and trickled onto the dirt; it had turned out to be made of sand, not water.

The assassin's outstretched hand was the last part of him to fall, despite the weight of Shikyo's sword impaling the his wrist.

Naruto skidded to an abrupt halt beside Sasuke, who stared at this grim spectacle with a face deathly pale as the dying man's.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura called, descending from the tree and hurrying toward them.

Kakashi finally took notice of his students again. His face was as white as Sasuke's, though he stood firm and unflinching.

"Naruto . . . Sasuke . . . stand back," he ordered them, in a voice hoarse from tension. His eyes were heavy-lidded from exhaustion but still wary, and he added as he stepped backward a few paces, "You're going to feel it when he dies."

These words stopped Sakura dead in her tracks, and she glanced questioningly at the Jounin. However, he offered no further explanation, sinking to his knees upon the road amid the debris strewn across it.

Something very odd was happening to the dead man. On his face, and on the skin of his hand, red sigils trailed their way across his flesh like veins---even across his lips, which were drawn back in a grimace of horror. The fingers of the hand stretched toward Kakashi curled claw-like into the dirt. Then the man's entire body went stiff, as if rigor mortis had already set in.

"Get back," Shikyo ordered Naruto and Sasuke, moving to stand between them and pushing them both even further backward with a hand on each boy's chest. "The further away from him you are, the better." Neither of them offered any protest.

Abruptly, the enemy's body contorted, the limbs splaying out at odd angles. Sakura let out a little scream; it looked as if something had possessed the corpse. Then the body went limp, slumping down again to lie prone against the earth. An eerie pulse of something like pure energy radiated outward from the man's inert form, propagating wavelike in every direction. Naruto did not understand exactly what the wave was; its passage was only vaguely evident to the eyes of all present. The air wavered where it passed, as if each of them were looking at it through a shaken glass of water. They could not properly seeit, but all who were present feltit in the very marrow of their bones. It was cold---deathly cold, like ice against the flesh, chilling so intensely that it burned. Yet it only touched them for an instant, and then this, too passed. In its wake, it left them standing shaken and whey-faced and very much unnerved.

The sigils on the dead man's skin had vanished.

Kakashi bowed his head, rubbing the sweat off his brow beneath his forehead protector. He let out a long, deep sigh. At Naruto's side, Sasuke sank to his knees. Naruto glanced down at him in alarm; the other boy's face was oddly blank, and very pale.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura cried, hastening to his side. "Are you all right?" She knelt beside him, peering up into his face with concern.

Sasuke offered no reply, but her voice seemed to bring him to his senses. Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet. His legs were shaking. Ultimately, it had been his shuriken that slew the impostor.

"You've never killed before, have you, Uchiha Sasuke?" Shikyo asked softly. The Mizutou shinobi looked as if he were about to lay a reassuring hand on the Genin's shoulder, but then seemed to think better of it. Instead, Shikyo turned to address the others. "Kakashi, you're unharmed?"

The Jounin lifted his head and nodded, but made no move to get up.

"Yes, but I need to rest before we move on," he said hoarsely. "I've used up most of my chakra, and I don't think there will be another attack for tonight, at least. If events proceed according to this group's past actions, they won't dispatch any more than ten at a time."

"Ten?" Sakura exclaimed, staring at Kakashi in unabashed amazement. "Kakashi-sensei, what happened to you in the forest?"

The ghost of a smile returned some of the life to the Jounin's face.

"Five attacked me. I believe between us we've dispatched them all."

"You mean . . . you killed them all?" Sasuke asked, his gaze traveling back and forth between the Jounin and the dead man on the road. "Were they all . . . like this one?"

'He killed five of them?' Naruto thought, gaping at the Jounin. 'By himself? No wonder he's exhausted.' Then his gaze slid sideways to Shikyo. If Kakashi had killed five of the ten assassins, then that meant Shikyo had killed the other five. 'Who is this guy?' Naruto found himself wondering as he stared at the short, quiet shinobi standing beside him.

Shikyo had a very narrow, angular face, blue eyes, and brows that slanted upward over his temples. His hair was black, but with an odd bluish sheen to it that suggested a bloodline trait of his clan. He wore it bound atop his head in a topknot that hung loose at the end like a horse's tail. His movements were fluid and quick; Naruto recalled how the sword he had flung to impale the impostor's hand had flown so swiftly it blurred. And Shikyo's eyes were pale blue and very hard-looking; he looked as if he had killed many times.

A significant glance now passed between Kakashi and Shikyo, but Kakashi shook his head. Shikyo turned toward Kakashi's students, a faint frown creasing his brow.

"The cold feeling will pass," he told them. They were all still very pale. "But are you injured in any way? Sakura? Sasuke?" He paused, and then turned toward the third member of their team. "Naruto?"

Naruto opened his mouth to reply, but only a hoarse choking noise emerged from his throat.

"Naruto, your neck . . ." Sakura said suddenly, gazing up at his back from where she knelt.

Naruto's hands flew immediately to his throat, feeling around for the source of the problem. Shikyo located it first, pushing the Genin's hands away and touching a point on the side of his neck.

"Hold still," he ordered. Then he yanked the needle free.

"Ow!" Naruto rasped as the point came clear of his skin. He clapped one hand against it as blood began to trickle from the wound.

"That hit him pretty near the jugular vein for being thrown in the dark," Sasuke remarked, standing up and peering at the injury.

Shikyo's eyes narrowed as he pried Naruto's fingers aside and probed the wound carefully.

"Kakashi-san, his voice will---"

"Naruto will be fine," Kakashi interrupted. "He'll heal quickly." The Jounin spoke nonchalantly, but in such a way as to clearly indicate that this was not a topic to be discussed at length.

Naruto glanced up at Shikyo out of the corner of his eye.

'Does Shikyo-san know about the Nine-Tails?' he wondered. But he didn't have the freedom to ask that here.

"When is someone going to explain that to us?" Sasuke asked, turning away from Naruto and nodding toward the corpse in the road.

"We have to tell them immediately," Shikyo told Kakashi grimly. "The sooner they know, the better we can train them in the ways to survive against it."

The Jounin rested his hands against his thighs. He was no longer breathing heavily, but a cold sweat had beaded on his brow. He nodded briskly.

Shikyo walked to the edge of the road and retrieved his pack, which he'd flung to the ground before joining the skirmish. Then he walked over to the dead man, planted one leather-sandaled foot on the man's palm, and yanked the sword he had thrown free of the man's wrist.

"Ten men like this were sent to kill us," he began, nudging the dead man's elbow with the toe of his sandal. "Kakashi and I were able to kill them all, between us, because of the kenjutsu we've learned to combat the assassins' main technique. You three will have to learn it as well if you're to be of any use on this mission." He glanced over his shoulder, offering them a faint smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Lord Garyu appears to have faith that you will."

"This technique . . ." Sasuke murmured, seating himself cross-legged atop a nearby boulder. "You mean the strange jutsu the enemy used as he died?"

"It's called 'Shinkuhana'," Shikyo answered, still examining the corpse. It seemed he felt it was safe to touch the man's flesh now. "The 'Crimson Blossom' skill." Leaning forward, he removed the dead man's cloth head-guard and plucked a few of his hairs.

Naruto watched him do this with a look of ill-concealed disgust. Kakashi must have noticed the look and sensed that the Genin was about to interrupt with some comment on it, because he cleared his throat loudly.

"Ahem. Naruto, come here," he ordered, beckoning with one blood-stained hand. "I'll see to the wound. Sakura, bring my pack."

As Sakura and Naruto moved to oblige him, Shikyo went on.

"It's not hard to guess whythat name was given to it," he remarked, pointing to the exposed skin of the dead man's forearm. "You saw the marks that appeared on his skin before the wave of chakra went out from his body. If the technique is done properly, all the assassin must do is touch the victim and a red sigil appears on the victim's body. And you can't mold chakra to combat it; it's like a poison that infects even the chakra fields that circulate around you. The more chakra you mold, the larger the surface area for the assassin to target. Its mark is a round sigil, and it spirals outward like the petals of a rose. All of this happens in the brief instant between the touch and the victim's death. The victim will die a split-second after he's touched, and the sigil will disappear. It's the ultimate assassin's technique---it kills swiftly and silently, and leaves no mark on the body to bear evidence. Chakra use only makes it deadlier. And it only requires one hand to perform the seal."

"How?" Sasuke insisted, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "How does it kill? What is it that the seal does that kills so quickly?"

"Kataame," Shikyo murmured, forming a quick, fluid seal. Droplets of water rose from the dirt around him, and spattered down briefly from the trees above to gather in a sort of hovering puddle above his hand. Keeping his eyes trained on the puddle, Shikyo lifted his sword and stuck it through the water. Then, having successfully wet the sword, he proceeded to clean it on the cloth he'd removed from the dead man's head.

"Now . . . You ask about the method. Well, the actual methodis almost laughably simple. The assassin performs the seal and dips those fingers in his own blood. When he does that, he is using the very chakra that sustains his life to open a sort of vortex between him and his intended victim. If the blood on his fingers touches any part of the victim's body or chakra field---regardless of whether it's vital or not---the vortex draws all of that person's chakra into itself.

"Think of it like electricity---like your Chidori, Sasuke. The assassin is creating a positive charge with his chakra. That is the ground---the earth. Then it draws the negative charge of the lightning---the chakra sustaining the victim's life. Together, they clash; lightning strikes. Only this lightning isn't bright; it burns red sigils into the victim's skin. And this vortex---this meeting of positive and negative chakras---causes both to cancel each other out."

"What do you mean by that?" Sakura asked, cutting bandages and handing them to Kakashi.

Shikyo had finished washing his sword and was now drying it carefully against the dark blue fabric of his haori.

"The ultimate assassin's technique comes with a terrible price," he said darkly. "When I say that both chakras cancel each other out, I mean that both victim and wielder will draw their last breath at the same moment. In order for Shinkuhana to work, it must kill the one who performed the seal."

"How horrible," Sakura breathed. "You'd have to really want to kill someone to use it."

"Kakashi-sensei, you're hurting me," Naruto croaked, his hands flying to his throat.

"Oh . . . I'm sorry, Naruto." Kakashi loosened the bandages around the Genin's neck, making an effort to be gentler as he did so.

"But howis thatthe ultimate technique?" Sasuke insisted, staring at Shikyo's blue-clad back. "To throw your life away, when your target may not even die?"

Shikyo finished drying the sword and proceeded to lift Sasuke's shuriken out of the dirt to wash it.

"The assassin won't die if his fingers are unable to touch his victim. His chakra merely resumes its normal flow and he remains unharmed." He nodded toward the dead man. "This one never touched Kakashi's flesh or chakra field because Kakashi-san molded no chakra. Instead, this assassin died when your weapon slit his throat, before the technique could be dispelled. That's why you felt the wave sent out from his body. That was his chakra leaving him and dispersing into the air. It felt cold because its flow had been reversed to perform the Shinkuhana. However. . . If the victim is touched, then there is no cure. The target dies instantly, without even the time to utter a cry. There are none who can withstand this technique. There is no chakra great enough to withstand it. In fact, the greater the chakra potential, the greater the danger."

He hefted the newly-cleansed shuriken in one hand and tossed it over to Sasuke, who caught it and sat there studying it, as if the dead man's blood might have left some imprint upon its fan-like blades.

"Kakashi-san and I will be teaching you kenjutsu to prepare you for the dangers ahead," Shikyo informed them, pushing himself to his feet and brushing the dirt off his pants. "If ever you find yourselves in a position where your physical enduranceis greatly depleted but your enemies keep coming, you will need to use a sword to keep them at a distance---to prevent them from touching you." He turned a shrewd blue eye in Sasuke's direction. "Long-range weapons like shuriken will do for the journey, but in Mizutou the quarters will be much closer. The city has narrow streets and enclosed buildings with narrow halls. When you encounter assassins there, they may only be two feet away from you."

Naruto stared at the Mizutou shinobi in silence. "The target dies instantly, without even the time to utter a cry . . ." These words chilled him to the bone---not so much out of fear for himself but out of horror that someone could be killed that easily.

Sasuke was thinking to himself, 'Sannin-level ninja like Orochimaru or Itachi would never use such a technique. They wouldn't want to kill anyone badly enough to sacrifice themselves. They're too selfish, and too intent upon living to enact their agendas.' His eyes narrowed as he contemplated the blades of his shuriken. 'Itachi . . .'

"Kakashi-san, this is the first of the Shinkuhana assassins that I've gotten a proper look at," Shikyo told the Jounin. He held up the lock of hair he'd plucked from the man's head. "Orange hair. And he used a sand-shield technique to block your sword. These alone are enough evidence to prove that he's not a Mist Ninja."

Kakashi finished dressing Naruto's wound and rose to his feet. The two men regarded each other for a moment; a grim understanding passing between them that none of the Genin present could fathom. Then Kakashi tilted back his head to gaze at the sky. A vague, fuzzy dawn was beginning over the treetops, but its light was gray because a thick blanket of clouds now stretched across the horizon.

"We should find an inn," he decided, slipping his pack back over his lean shoulders. "It will rain soon, and we'll need sleep before we head out into the forest again."

His students complied, re-shouldering their own supplies and hurrying over to join him. Sasuke snapped his shuriken blades closed with a sharp snick and reinserted it into his pack.

"Sakura-chan, you look pale," Naruto rasped, peering at her anxiously. Mutely, Sakura shook her head. She was regarding Naruto in return and thinking, 'He's been impaled through the throat and he still looks the healthiest out of all of us.'

Then she noticed Shikyo watching Naruto out of the corner of his cold blue eye, and rightly guessed that the Rain ninja was thinking something along the same lines. She decided she didn't like Shikyo much.

"Kakashi-sensei, do you know this technique?" Sasuke asked suddenly as he hurried after the Jounin. "This 'Shinkuhana'?"

There was a moment of silence, in which Kakashi didn't answer and the eyes of all present turned toward him. The Jounin didn't slow down or face any of them.

Then he finally answered, quietly, "Yes."

A thousand questions flooded Naruto's mouth, but as the first word rolled off his tongue his wound throbbed and he decided they could wait until after it had healed.

Sasuke, however, appeared to have only one agenda. His dark eyes had a faraway, shadowed look to them, as if he were seeing not the road ahead but some grim specter of the past.

"You know 'Shinkuhana'," he murmured slowly. "Are you going to teach it to us?"

This time Kakashi paused mid-step.

"No."

Then he resumed walking, leaving the three Genin to stare at his back and wonder.

END OF CHAPTER 2