Kannin had forgotten how long he'd been in this padded cell, it felt like days. The minutes had droned onto hours which had slowed like molasses. Kannin spent most of his time sat up in the corner, which was for more comfortable than he'd expected--the padding was actually quite soft. If he ignored the straightjacket and the other bindings, it wasn't too bad.
Staring at the ceiling for hours and hours on end, he began to investigate the space more with his chakra out of boredom. It turned out, it wasn't exactly true that he couldn't feel his chakra in the cell, but rather the bindings, the walls, the jacket--everything in here was suppressing his chakra so much that it was like he couldn't feel it.
Kannin tried to see if he couldn't break free of the suppressing effect with his adamantine chains, but no matter how much chakra he drained, nothing changed.
'So there's probably a constant influx of chakra to maintain this space' Kannin thought aloud, furrowing his brow, 'and with the chakra suppressing effect of the space, my ability to drain it is dampened severely, but it doesn't mean I can't try.'
After muttering that, six large steely grey chains embedded themselves in each wall of the cell, stringing Kannin up in the dead center of the cube. Being suspended like this wasn't a feeling Kannin was used to; he felt like a piece of meat in a butchershop strung up in the freezer. He also kind of felt like a spider at the center of its own web, but the weightlessness was a funny feeling, like when you crest a hill in a car and you get that sickly sensation in your stomach.
He sat in the air there for what felt like a week, just sucking out what little chakra he could, while investigating the strange feeling on his skin. Even though he had finally begun sensing chakra here, over the hours and days, he still couldn't shake this empty feeling on his skin, like a jacket he had worn his whole life was taken off all of a sudden.
After pondering that feeling for a long time, he came to a realization,
'It's probably natural energy, right?' he said, his eyes opening wide, 'Oooh if I'm right, this is a big one.'
He had figured that if that feeling wasn't chakra, it had to be natural energy. By trapping Kannin in this sealing space, the Root Anbu had inadvertently also separated him from all the natural energy surrounding him all the time. He had spent a few weeks trying to sense natural energy with nothing to show for it, but now that it had all been taken away, he had become keenly aware of its absence.
'Once I get unsealed,' he muttered, offering a small prayer that he would, in fact, be unsealed, 'I'm bound to sense a massive influx of natural energy around me. I need to use that. This is my best shot to start understanding Sage Mode.'
Kannin became ecstatic at the thought, but his face quickly fell at the idea of staying awake for however long it would take to get unsealed. If he was asleep when it happened, his whole plan would come undone.
-
In the outside world, the mouse mask noticed as he was carrying the sealing block, that his chakra was being drained faster than before, by about 50% to be precise. Feeling it out, he whispered to the dog mask
"Something's not right with the seal"
But when he looked over at Dog, all he saw was a blur of grey and red, as a massive vulpine form emerged from the brush and clamped down on his neck. Dog and Fox went flying to the side in a spray of bloody mist, legs and limbs flailing, surprising Mouse enough to make him drop the sealing stone in the moment.
A scream pierced the silent wood at that moment, and even Team Kannin was surprised. They hadn't really factored Kiyo into their plans, and it seemed they underestimated how eager she was to get Kannin back. Seeing her burst into action, they decided to get a move on as well.
Tetsu leapt from the branches, weaving hand seals as he dropped, and when he landed on the packed earth, he put his knuckles to the ground and created a deep fissure that surrounded the enemy. A great cracking and groaning continued to break the silence as the earth shook with the sheer power of his jutsu.
Bird mask realized what was happening and looked to the treeline to search for any other interlopers, where she saw a another Anbu, wearing a cat mask, and an Uchiha girl wearing absurdly casual clothing. She weaved hand seals faster than she ever had before and spewed a stream of greyish-white fluid from her mouth, constructing a spider web around her and her companions.
By this point, Dog had shaken Kiyo off of him and mended the wound to his neck in time not to die of blood loss. He summoned a cage of jade around the massive fox, and ran back over to support his companions; but what he found confused him. His companion Bird was standing lazily while Mouse was struggling on the ground, bound in the webs he had seen Bird create so many times before.
"Bird what are you doing!" he shouted as he entered the scene
Bird looked over at the enemies she had caught in her web struggling to break free, the Cat, Rabbit, and Uchiha girl, with a sense of satisfaction--which was then shaken by the sound of her comrade Dog's voice shouting out.
Suddenly, her vision shuddered, and the shadow of a Sharingan covered her eyes, as the scene in front of her melted to reality. She saw Mouse bound in webbing, and the Uchiha girl holding a kunai to her neck.
'Shit!' Bird thought
She elbowed Warai in the trachea, and spun around, spewing more webbing around. Warai stumbled back, grasping at her neck and dropping the kunai in her hand. At that moment, Mouse erupted into flame as he burned away the webbing from his body.
Kakashi ran in and swiped at Bird with a Chidori, but she turned into a block of wood in a puff of smoke when it connected.
'Damn' Kakashi thought, 'I only have 1 more of those left.'