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o o o RED BLOSSOM o o o

o o Chapter 9: Assassins' Ring! The Maze Beneath the City o o

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Sasuke's quick reflexes alone saved him from dying immediately.

Naruto's saved him from dying.

In the darkness of the Water-lord's chamber, Sasuke heard steel singing through the air and lurched backward into a bridge. Felt the katana blade pass over him, a hair's-breadth above his nose. Had he not moved in time, it would have been cloven in two. In darkness, he faced the distinct disadvantage of being unable to use his Sharingan as well as being naturally blinded. Whoever these enemies with the blue helix masks were, they were only using taijutsu, and he couldn't read their movements beyond the sounds of air whooshing past or the rasp of steel as they drew their katana.

'Sound,' he thought, rolling out of the bridge and scuttling spider-like along the floor. 'Shit! Sound! Even using chakra I can't move lightly enough to stop the tiles from ringing!'

A blade sang past his face, grazing his left cheek and ear and drawing blood. He lurched sideways, only to be met by the cold swish of air from a katana stabbing just past the crown of his head and sinking into the tile with a discordant jangle. Reacting on instinct, he spun on one hand, jack-knifing his legs upward to kick the sword's wielder. But his feet went sailing through empty air instead.

A hand wrapped itself around his ankle, catching him fast in an awkward hand-stand. He kicked upward with his free foot and felt it connect with skin and bone. The owner of the hand grunted but didn't let go, and the next thing Sasuke knew the room was exploding around him.

The first second, there was a brief flash of fire, illuming the exploding tag and kunai and the masked enemy into whose chest it had been thrown. The blue helix face snapped downward from the impact of blade into breast. Then the man's body burst in all directions, in a rush of flame and plasma and bits of wood from the mask. Sasuke would have been thrown backward from the shockwaves, but the hand on his foot held fast. Even as his torso pin wheeled backward and his teeth clicked hard together, he found himself yanked up into the air, and then pulled in tight against someone pressed into a corner of the ceiling.

"What the hell? The bomb was to help you escape," Naruto groaned. His free hand was clapped to the side of his face, where Sasuke had kicked him. Sasuke could see a thin trickle of blood run over Naruto's knuckles from between his fingers, but that was all he had time to see before the flare from below died. The blast had temporarily deafened him, but already he could hear the loud hiss of smoke filling the room. Acrid and sharp, it burned his nose, mercifully dulling the more repulsive odor of burnt blood from the enemy who'd exploded. From the feel of things, the blood was all over his clothing.

"We haven't escaped," Sasuke replied through gritted teeth, twisting into a more stable position beside his comrade. "They're still after us."

"Shut up. They'll hear."

And for once, Sasuke shut his mouth and gave Naruto's words due consideration. The two of them were crouched in the ceiling's corner, and the assassins were still searching for them on the floor in considerable confusion. He could hear their light footsteps ringing off the tiles.

"There aren't many more than ten of them," Naruto whispered. "You can count them by the different notes on the floor. If we can tell where they are . . ."

In the dark, Sasuke nodded, then grabbed Naruto's elbow and squeezed to indicate agreement when he realized the nod was pointless. Naruto was stupid, but the annoyance he'd caused by trying to play songs with the nightingale floor earlier was actually coming in useful.

"I have a plan," Naruto whispered, a touch more dramatically than was warranted.

Sasuke rolled his eyes. 'Obviously,' he thought. 'Get on with it.'

And Naruto, who couldn't read minds, got on with it nonetheless.

He began a series of rapid arm movements that Sasuke correctly guessed to be a seal.

First came a series of explosions, and Sasuke braced himself against the ceiling, certain that these were more bombs. Then he realized that they weren't bombs but clones---hundreds of Naruto clones, bashing into things all over the room because there wasn't enough floor-space to hold them. The room was soon filled with cries of confusion from the enemy, who was baffled by the sudden presence of so many Naruto's. Mixed in with these were the outraged yells of the Naruto's themselves, angry that they had been created only to be destroyed as the assassins mowed them down with katana.

Naruto's idea had been a clever one, Sasuke gave him that. However, Naruto wasn't moving fast enough for Sasuke's liking. Latching onto his comrade's forearm, Sasuke began a mad dash round the perimeter of the wall, following the line between ceiling and vertical wall to avoid the majority of their pursuers. But he wasn't heading for the door. Rather, he was making straight for the side-door leading into what had previously been Sakura's quarters, which adjoined the Water-lord's room. Amid the confusion and the noise, they somehow managed to encounter only one attacker in their path, whom both of them dispatched at once with symmetrical, vicious swipes of their kunai.

Amid the confusion the sound of the heavy wood door panels sliding open was utterly lost, and a few seconds later they found themselves scuttling along the wall in the smaller chamber. This, too was utterly dark, but the door leading into the hall was easy to find. Naruto was about to fling it open when Sasuke grabbed his arm again.

"There are Heikou in the halls," Sasuke whispered. "Henge into one of them first."

Seconds later, the two were swimming upstream through a river of blue-clad samurai, who were pressing toward the Water-lord's bedchamber with swords drawn and ready in response to the commotion. One of them stopped Sasuke, blocking his way with the length of a blade.

"Where are you going?" the Heikou asked sharply.

Thinking quickly, Sasuke answered, "I'm going to find Arashi Shikyo. He's gone missing."

The man gave Sasuke a very odd, knowing look that Sasuke didn't fail to notice. Then he nodded briskly. "Moritome-san gave orders to search him out an hour ago. We're certain he's going to the Mist."

"You've sent a search party?" Sasuke asked, eyes narrowing. "When the Heikou Elite still haven't returned?"

The samurai's expression darkened further. "We're not expecting to find them alive."

Then he brushed past, and was lost in the crowd outside the chamber.

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

The progress of the two Genin slowed considerably by the time they'd left the general vicinity of the Water-lord's quarters. They paused in an empty courtyard to reconnoiter, squatting in the wet grass to figure out where to go. Bizarrely, the place appeared to be a sort of abandoned training area on the outskirts of Mizutou's palace grounds. There weren't any torches lit therein; they were crouched in the shadow of the surrounding dojo, with sparse light from the coming dawn overhead. Sasuke's head swiveled right to left as he took in his surroundings. He was panting and wearing a frown.

"We have to find Toru and rescue Chizuru-sama," Naruto said, in low, urgent tones. "He's going to use her to find the real Water-lord."

"Forget his wife; she's not our priority," Sasuke reminded him. "She'll be fine so long as Toru thinks he can use her. What you and I need to do is find the Water-lord himself. Toru's a shinobi adept at hiding himself, who knows this city well. We don't. There's not a chance in hell we'll catch him on his own turf."

"Right," Naruto agreed. But he squinted a bit; Sasuke hadn't seemed so gung-ho about the mission's priorities earlier, when he'd wanted to chase down the missing Shikyo. "So . . . do you still have the map?"

Sasuke shook his head, but tapped his right temple with one finger. In the wan light, Naruto noticed a gleam of sweat on the pale skin of the other boy's forehead.

'He used chakra when he shouldn't have,' Naruto thought. 'The poison's gotten worse. Better we go after the Water-lord than try taking on a shinobi with him like this.'

"If you wanted to hide from everyone, even your own guards, where would you go?" he asked, peering at his comrade's sickly pallor with poorly-concealed scrutiny.

"There are gashes in the posts here," Sasuke remarked vaguely, still studying the courtyard. "This place looks like it hasn't been used in a long time, but those marks on the pillars look fresh. And . . . too large and jagged to be from katana . . ."

"Oi, Sasuke, help me out here."

With a brief shake of his head, as if waking from a reverie, Sasuke stopped rubbernecking and answered, "Underground."

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They were unable, in the end, to use the transformation technique to get outside the palace walls. Despite their luck finding the abandoned courtyard in which to rest, the perimeters were under severe lockdown, with the Heikou desperate to apprehend all of the assassins and possibly Chizuru's kidnapper. Naruto figured they were wasting their energy; Toru was probably long-gone. He and Sasuke employed camouflaging ninjutsu to scale the walls, then shinnied down the other side and took off at a dash. A quarter of a mile into the city---he had no idea where, though Sasuke apparently did---they found a sewer grate large enough for them to squeeze through. Beneath the grate, just below where the squares of blue-gray dawn light slanted in through the bars, was a set of rungs.

"A ladder," Sasuke observed, resting his weight on the first of them. Then he let himself drop the rest of the way with a brief hop backward.

Naruto screwed up his face in disgust as his comrade landed with a resounding squish, in the darkness some twenty feet below.

Sasuke's reaction to the filth in which he'd apparently touched down came echoing up the gutter-shaft. "Fuck."

Naruto, who'd found his chakra reserves already replenishing himself, spidered down the wall on all fours. It was pitch-black at the bottom, but he could tell his avoidance of the floor was a wise choice as he heard Sasuke sloshing over to him through what smelled like liquid cabbage-farts.

"There are tunnels here; I can tell from the echoes. Move over and let me up," Sasuke ordered, voice muffled from what was presumably his hand clapped over mouth and nose.

"You shouldn't wall-walk," Naruto argued, refusing to budge. "Kakashi-sensei said your chakra level is---"

"If I throw up I'll be dehydrated and even weaker," Sasuke snapped, squelching to the left and hopping onto the wall beside him. "Follow me."

Naruto obeyed, worried for Sasuke's health but at the same time disappointed that Sasuke did not have to wade through shit for a while. Wading through shit seemed like it would be a valuable humbling experience for the number-one rookie Genin.

"Oh well," he muttered.

Sasuke was correct about the tunnels---extremely so. There were a lot of them. A whole lot. Curving this way and that, or running straight and perpendicular to each other. Most of them were slimy and pungent, though a few were caked with hard clay and dry as a bone from the feel of things. Some were so narrow they could only be traversed at a crawl, with no room to turn around once inside. These they avoided; meeting an enemy in such closed-in spaces would be disastrous.

"Seriously, how were we supposed to find anything in here?" Naruto demanded after about fifteen minutes of this. "We need a flashlight if we want to find traces of people down here . . . and it reeks."

"No light," Sasuke said in a low voice. "I know where we're going."

"How?" Naruto asked, grumpily. "This wasn't on the map."

"No," Sasuke agreed, dropping his tone further still and slowing his pace along the wall. "But it's like the map. Just like it, in fact. A maze. A sewer, following the same pattern as the city above it."

"I'd still rather have---" But he found himself cut off as Sasuke clapped a hand over his mouth. The palm was sweaty and smelled faintly of the gook underfoot.

"Because in pitch black you can see light from far off," Sasuke said, in a voice down to the barest whisper.

Ahead of them, the rounded pipes that formed the sewer walls were beginning to brighten, and gleamed with the faintest ghost of a metallic sheen. Next came the shadow of a man, moving soundlessly toward them. As it rounded the bend ahead it took shape, darkening and thinning to the form of a top-knotted warrior bearing two katana strapped across his back, carrying what appeared to be a flashlight wrapped in cloth to mute its brilliance.

"Come down," Shikyo said, glancing up at the two Genin crouched and camouflaged against the ceiling portion of the pipe. "I returned to the city to find you; there isn't much time."

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

Sakura fell unconscious around the time Kakashi began to lose hope of reaching the Hidden Village of Mist. He wasn't far from unconsciousness himself, he knew. The numbness in his fingertips and toes had spread into his arms and legs, and his stomach roiled with nausea. It was a slow toxin spreading through his limbs, which confused him.

Why would the enemy want to kill him slowly but still be chasing him? And chasing him they were. He sensed them following him, watching, like vultures waiting for their prey to drop.

'If they lacked the courage to attempt fighting me, they should have used quick poison,' he thought. 'What is the point of letting me get close to the Mist before I die?'

He squinted; his vision was blurring. Something gleamed ahead, between the trees. His eyes narrowed further, breath beginning to wheeze and burn his chest. There was a shape coalescing out of the forest ahead, shrouded in a haze stained green by the flora. It was far too solid to be natural.

'Moss-covered wood?' he wondered, changing course slightly and making for it. 'A wall? Have I reached it, then?'

He hitched Sakura's dead weight higher up on his back, hooking her legs in the crook of each elbow. Quickened his pace. Stumbled.

The gleam ahead wasn't from the wooden structure. It was part of a web of wires. One caught him in the throat, another in the ankles, and he fell hard. His head slammed into the ground sideways as the wire at his neck snapped, sending blunt pain thick as a tree trunk from neck to tailbone.

The other wires had snapped as well, so quickly had he gone careening into them, and now they came drifting down on top of him. One landed just in front of his nose. There was a warm trickle from the cheek he'd landed on, which he presumed was from striking a rock, but he couldn't feel it. His face was going numb and slack.

He lay there, unable to move any more, wondering vaguely where Sakura had been flung by the impact. A thin strand of drool trickled from the corner of his mouth, sticking in the grass.

After what seemed like ages, he heard quick, light footsteps coming from somewhere behind him, and the faint clink of weapons. Unable to turn his head, he rolled his eyes upward and saw, to his surprise, that there were others coming toward him from the direction of the structure.

'This was . . . all a Mist trap?' he mused.

But instead of making straight for him, the two groups of shinobi clashed above him.

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

"Give me one good reason why we shouldn't beat the crap out of you for deserting us!" Naruto snarled, jumping down from the ceiling and landing with a raucous splash in the sewage. He was too incensed to care how bad the stuff smelled any more.

Shikyo didn't flinch. He was standing atop the sludge, feet cushioned on chakra.

"There is no Village responsible for the attacks," he said darkly. "There is a conspiracy here, greater than anything we imagined. I aim to gather proof to exonerate the Mist. But I need your help."

"What conspiracy?" Naruto fired back, one hand still reaching into his shuriken pouch for shuriken he didn't have.

"An assassins' ring," Shikyo answered. "Come, follow me. We must find the Water-lord; I share Chizuru-sama's knowledge of where he hides. I'll explain as we go, but come. There isn't time."

"But---"

"We follow him."

Naruto glanced at Sasuke in surprise as the other Genin brushed past him, approaching the impatient Rain ninja. "He'll lead us to Garyu-sama."

Once again, this time in the dim glow of Shikyo's flashlight, Naruto found himself looking at the dark square of Sasuke's receding back. Grimly, he shut his mouth.

'Where are you really going, Sasuke? Why do you trust this guy so quickly?'

But he followed.

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

When next the world swam into focus, Kakashi found himself lying face up, on turf much softer than before. His face was dry; in fact, his whole body felt dry. His tongue felt like an empty sponge. But his muscles were sore, which meant he could feel again, and even feeling bad was better than feeling nothing at all. In his opinion.

"Sakura," he rasped, turning his head. He was lying on a bed, he realized. A bed with gray sheets. Sakura, to his relief, lay on a bed next to his, asleep. Her breath was slow and even, and much of the color seemed to have returned to her cheeks. She was no longer wearing her disguise, which had become quite mangled on the Mist-bound journey, but a gray shift of sorts that was a little too big for her. Her thin arms and legs, sticking out from the sleeves and bottom, looked very fragile, as if she were a sick little girl instead of a trained killer.

Her frailty reminded him a little of a memory, which he had no desire to revisit. Instead he pushed himself into a sitting position, and found to his surprise that the vertigo from the poison was gone. As was the strip of cloth he'd used to replace his hitae ate while disguised as the merchant---the strip which had covered his Sharingan eye.

There were no windows in the room; only two thin strips of fluorescent lighting in the middle of the ceiling. The place was Spartan and spare.

There was a door, though. Just as he noticed the door, its lock turned with a complicated-sounding series of clicks and gears grinding, and an old woman entered bearing a pitcher and a glass. Kakashi made no move toward the door or the woman, though he kept his eyes on her as she shuffled toward him, grumbling.

"It's rude to stare," she said, setting pitcher and glasses down on the small nightstand between the beds. "You should know better."

Her back was hunched, and her face was so lined with wrinkles it might have been carved from the bark of a tree. She wore blue robes, and wore her hair pulled back in a severe bun, from which a few haphazard locks had escaped and stuck out as wisps that framed her face.

"Where have you brought us?" Kakashi asked, ignoring her unfriendly greeting. "We were en route to the Hidden Village of Mist to warn them of the dangers in Mizutou. Then I was attacked."

The old woman squinted one eye at him, then let out a brief, throaty cackle.

"The hell you were, boy. We've treated the girl; she suffered Aoite poison. You were heading to the Mist to steal the antidote, no doubt." She stepped back from the table, resting gnarled hands on the small of her back and pursing her lips. Kakashi frowned, ignoring the way dehydration made his temples throb. There was something unmistakably judgmental in the way she regarded him; she was waiting for something. Unlike her weathered complexion, her eyes were a keen blue, sharp and startling as a kunai blade.

Eyes that looked like they'd know a lie when they saw one. So he decided to begin sipping the water and to tell her the truth.

"Yes, I would have stolen the antidote if it would've saved her fastest," he admitted, affecting a somewhat sheepish expression and scratching the back of his spiky hair with one hand. "But also to warn the Mist, if possible."

"You're from the Leaf, aren't you?" the woman demanded, sneering at him. "Stupid boy, risking war between us for the sake of a waif like that one." She jerked her head once, indicating Sakura without taking her eyes off the Jounin. "Your Hokage ought to string you up by the heels, foregoing the mission for one person's sake."

'Ah,' Kakashi thought. 'So I have indeed reached the Mist Village. And this is my interrogator.' Aloud, he answered, "We were hired by the feudal lord of your own country, who believes you're behind the attempts on his life." The woman snorted derisively, but he took a deep breath and continued. "I've since come to believe otherwise. The killers use the Shinkuhana technique, which I know the Mist have forbidden."

She cracked a grin, revealing crooked teeth. "Heh. The Mizukage ordered all Crimson Blossom users killed."

'Brutal, as always,' Kakashi thought. 'And effective. How many has the Leaf allowed to live that should have died? And we've paid for our compassion, dearly, over the years.' He was thinking of Orochimaru. Of Itachi. And of the woman who betrayed the Leaf to the Stone, before the Third Great Ninja War.

"But you know that jutsu, don't you, Hatake Kakashi?" Her grin thinned and turned knowing. "We have record of you, been watching you since you took the Chuunin Exam here nineteen years ago. You've got yourself a new eye since then, but you're still the same brat."

"Time has taught me to care for my comrades," Kakashi corrected her. "My ruthlessness won me Chuunin rank in the Mist arena, but I've grown out of that since."

"Mm." The old woman pursed her lips, folding her hands behind her. "The Mist have grown, too, since you last set foot in the Village. But no tree's trunk can be perfectly straight if the roots are crooked. Compassionate Kakashi-san, you return to us now to save your comrade. But you wield the same jutsu as those who would frame the Village for our feudal lord's murder. Why did you learn it in the first place? For vengeance?"

Kakashi cast a brief, furtive glance toward Sakura, making sure she was still asleep. "No reason. I was neither reasonable nor rational when I chose to learn it."

Her eyes narrowed, and she grinned again. "Oh, you had a reason. The Crimson Blossom kills you. There is always a reason."

He swallowed hard, willing her to see the truth in both his eyes. "To protect the Leaf."

She turned away, began shuffling along the cold cement floor. Pacing, he realized. His answers were making her think.

"Another of my comrades has Aoite poisoning," he told her. "He needs your help. Why did you attack us while we crossed the sea? We hadn't broken any part of the treaty the Mist---"

She stopped pacing. Spun on her heel to face him again, with a sharpness nothing like an old woman's. "Why do men risk their lives to kill, Kakashi-san?"

"Love," he answered immediately. "And hatred. Or both."

"Or . . ." She jabbed one gnarled pointer finger toward the ceiling. "Or . . . belief. A lone man does such things for love or hatred. But many men, as part of a conspiracy, are wielding this jutsu. They are not Mist and they are not Rain; they have no Village loyalties. Men like that, they're dying to protect something larger."

Kakashi frowned. "I've no idea what it could be. Some, if not all, of the Heikou members may well be part of it. They claim to hate shinobi but they use ninjutsu."

"I know that." She waved her hand impatiently. "We've long suspected they had shinobi reflexes. If you've seen them use chakra with that eye of yours, that's just confirmation. They've surrounded the Water-lord and convinced his samurai to push the Mist presence from Mizutou with their prejudice. They wanted us gone so we couldn't watch their movements."

"But your spies have infiltrated the city, haven't they?"

She fixed him with a penetrating stare. "Every spy we've sent for the past month has died. Disappeared, not even a shred of flesh from the corpse to be found."

Kakashi's frown deepened. "The Heikou haven't reported those deaths. You'd think they'd jump at the chance to claim the dead spies were assassins, to further incriminate the Mist."

"It takes shinobi to kill shinobi, Hatake Kakashi. If there are assassins hiding among the Heikou, then they do their killing in the quiet and the dark."

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

The tunnel was black and silent; the Rain ninja had extinguished his light.

"I've found proof at last," Shikyo said, "of the existence of an assassins' ring. Beneath this city is a maze of tunnels, and at the heart of these there is a chamber containing a scroll. A duplicate of the forbidden Shinkuhana scroll. That is where they must have met, and learned it. They are missing-nin and ordinary men alike, working toward the same cause."

Walking beside him, Sasuke swallowed hard. "And what is that cause?"

"Balance of power." There was a brief pause, in which he could tell Shikyo was deciding what to explain and what to hold back. As the sole Uchiha survivor, he was used to adults being careful how they phrased things around him. In this case, it meant he probably shouldn't trust Shikyo. But he wanted something from Shikyo.

"What does that have to do with the Water-lord?" Naruto cut in, doubling his pace to draw abreast of the two. Sasuke could've strangled him.

"This assassin's ring calls itself 'Heikou,' also," the Rain ninja went on, ignoring the interruption. "The name signifies 'even scale,' or 'balance,' as you know, but the meaning itself is deeper for them. They believe that shinobi were a mistake---mutations, freaks, and a threat to peace. There were more savage times that you children would not remember, when shinobi clans warred with each other for land and money. The feudal lords of all the countries, foreseeing that all this senseless bloodshed would destroy the world, promised their local ninja clans wealth and military control if they would but unite and serve the greater good of their countries.

"It was a system that worked. Each country was balanced, with its own Village protectorate and its own government. But the Heikou believe that power is the source of bloodshed, and that shinobi ultimately crave power."

In the dark, Sasuke scowled.

"They believe the control of the feudal lords must be protected at all costs," Shikyo said. "Even to the point of assassinating rulers whom they see as weak. Like Garyu-sama, who was too cooperative with the Mist for their liking. As I've learned recently, in the past when feudal lords grow too weak, the Heikou took matters into their own hands. They had other methods for controlling the ninja of their countries---methods that had little to do with putting anti-shinobi rulers in charge. They can't find the Water-lord now, so their plan is backfiring. So they're starting to resort to the second option . . ."

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

"Hiring you was not the Water-lord's idea," the old woman said disapprovingly. "One of his Heikou must've advised it. And now, thanks to the deaths of our spies, we don't know where he hides, so we can't protect him. But the spies we stationed in the Wave Country warned us of your passage. And we knew the second you set foot on the Water Country's isle without proper shinobi identification, you were in violation of the treaty between the Leaf and the Mist. The treaty's precious and delicate; it's the only thing standing between us and a fourth great ninja war. You're not so young you don't remember the third war, are you Kakashi-san?" She cocked one sea-blue eye at him, tilting her head to the side.

Kakashi pulled his legs into a cross-legged position, resting his forearms on his thighs. "I remember," he answered gravely.

"Then you know we had no choice but to try and kill you four before you made port in our country," she snapped. "But we failed. And you four made it to Mizutou. And now you've come here, and we can't ignore the violation of the treaty any longer. We may soon be obligated to act against the Leaf, by the laws of the Water Country itself. It's as if these assassins of yours, shinobi or not, want to start a war between us. And such a war would only serve to weaken us, to destroy all we've built. For the sake of protecting ourselves, and our country, Kakashi-san, we would rather kill the few to save the many."

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

"It is 'the death of the few for the good of all,'" Shikyo said grimly. "To protect entire countries, the Heikou want to keep the shinobi Villages small and powerless."

Naruto hurried forward a few steps. He couldn't figure out why he kept seeming to fall behind Sasuke and the Rain ninja. Shikyo was keeping a fast pace, and made sudden sharp turns on occasion as they walked, which didn't seem to hinder Sasuke but which occasionally caused Naruto to walk into a wall before spinning a quick about-face and catching up again.

"How does assassinating Garyu-sama help them do that?" he asked. Shikyo couldn't seem to stay on the topic that was most important, in his opinion. And Sasuke, silent and morose, seemed more interested in Shikyo than in the mission.

"The Heikou will blame his death on the Leaf," Shikyo replied. "To break the truce between Konoha and the Mist. To see the two most powerful Villages at each others' throats, until they've cut each other down to size."

"Hell no," Naruto breathed. He knew Konoha was already weakened from the battle with the Sound-nin . . . More loudly, he asked, "But you said they can't find the Water-lord. What's the second option?"

Ahead of him, he heard the footsteps slow. One set of footsteps.

"To break the truce between Leaf and Mist two things are needed," Shikyo said, and there was something odd in his tone. "The first was the fight at the cliffs. Proof of hostile intent . . ."

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

"You've violated the treaty," the old woman said, her voice stern and terrible. "You've left us no choice. The Leaf brought violence to our borders, when you fought us at the southern cliffs. And we have no proof of who are real enemies are . . ."

"You said you will 'soon' be obligated to act," Kakashi said slowly. "Why haven't you acted already? If you'll do anything to stop a war, why are Haruno Sakura and I still alive?"

There came a brisk tap at the door, and his interrogator turned sharply, distracted. "Come in," she called. Then her piercing gaze swung back to him. "You're still alive because the Mist aren't as ruthless as we once were. There isn't sufficient proof yet that the Leaf have sent unwelcome intruders to the country under our jurisdiction. You, Kakashi-san, have dual rights to passage in both the Leaf and Mist Villages, dating back to your participation in our Chuunin Exam. We've already figured out that Haruno Sakura has no bloodline limit genes. There's no blood-link to Konoha, so we can use that to forestall saying the treaty's been officially broken."

Though his unmasked face betrayed no emotion, Kakashi's mind was in turmoil. 'Not good. How can I ask the Mist to treat him, when bringing him to them means direct proof of Konoha's hand in the deaths of those we fought on the southern cliffs? His blood alone would betray him . . .'

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

"Uchiha Sasuke, I've come to find you because we need you," Shikyo said.

Sasuke stopped in his tracks, surprised. His concentration was jostled; the sludge underfoot sucked at his sandals as he sank into it a little ways. "Why me?"

He felt Shikyo's earnest grip at his elbow, so hard it cut off his circulation almost immediately.

He felt the Rain ninja's hot breath as Shikyo bent nearer to him. "Because you are Uchiha. Because your bloodline limit marks you clearly as a Leaf-nin. Because you killed Mist-nin at the cliffs . . . you are the one we'll use to start a war. We have but to bring you to the Mist---"

"You---" Sasuke began, but he was startled by a sudden pinprick sensation on the underside of his elbow. "What?"

Wrenching his arm free, he swung round, stretching both arms out to feel about in the dark for Naruto.

There was no one walking behind them.

One hand flew to his elbow, felt the thin trickle of blood.

"You---needle?" he managed. Then his head reeled, and Shikyo's arms closed round him like a vise as he fell.

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

Walking behind Shikyo, Naruto realized he wasn't hearing Sasuke's footsteps.

"I don't care what the Heikou's second option is," he declared, jabbing a finger toward the Rain ninja's back. "What the hell's going on here? Sasuke?"

Shikyo stopped dead in his tracks, causing Naruto to bump into him and bounce back a foot. Naruto heard the swish of his clothes as Shikyo turned to face him. And the fainter, more wicked sing of needles sliding into position between Shikyo's fingers.

"I used Mizu Bunshin to split you from him," the Rain ninja explained, in a tone infuriatingly mild. "He's wandering somewhere else with my clone, and a clone of you. My clone of Sasuke-kun has vanished now, but I don't need him anymore. You and I have walked as far as we'll go."

"Wh-what?" Naruto sputtered, edging backward and slipping one hand into his empty shuriken holster again. "What the hell?"

There came the soft splash of sandaled feet, advancing toward him.

"The Heikou's second option," Shikyo said softly, "is to bring the Uchiha boy to the Mist. He bears Aoite poison in his body from the fight at the southern cliffs and Konoha's famed bloodline limit---both of which the Mist must consider direct proof that Konoha has violated the treaty. But we only need one to start the war. And you . . . you are unnecessary."

Sinking into a fighting stance in the pitch black, Naruto began to gather chakra in his palms. He sensed that if he didn't come at Shikyo with everything he had at lightning speed,he was going to die.

Then he heard a loud, strong splash, as of water jetting toward him from every direction. It echoed harshly in the tunnel. And he remembered Kakashi saying something about Shikyo's bloodline limit . . .

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

"That won't be necessary," the old woman told the man who'd just entered the room, bearing a tray of food. "No food for them. I want them kept weak, in case someone dares a rescue."

"Understood," the man replied, turning a smart about-face and exiting.

The woman followed him. "Here, I'll take that. You examine Hatake Kakashi. Make sure he's healthy otherwise."

He passed her the tray and she stepped across the threshold.

"We're your prisoners, then?" Kakashi called after her, bending sideways to see around the ninja medic she'd just ordered to examine him. "Prisoners until what?"

She paused, without turning around. "Until the Water-lord is found, and we are given tangible proof that the Leaf are here by his permission, to protect him. Or until we find proof that you're here with hostile intent. Then you'll be tortured for information and executed."

Overhead, the fluorescent light flickered, blinking gray.

"Please, something dangerous is going on in Mizutou," Kakashi insisted, starting to swing his legs over the edge of the bed to rise. "The Mizukage should hear my story directly." But the medic, a husky, unsmiling man of thirty, pushed him back onto the bed.

"To whom," the medic asked, "did you think you were speaking?"

The door swung shut behind the old woman with a clang like a death-knell.

END OF CHAPTER 9