The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. ~ Vincent van Gogh
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I stashed Ino in the roots of a tree where she would hopefully be out of the way until she was aware again. It was the best I could do on short notice, and I trapped the entrance, but it was far from perfect.
There wasn't really any other option, though. I couldn't keep carting her around.
Then I cut back towards Konoha, hoping I could reach Kiba before Kidomaru did. It would largely depend on how quickly Kidomaru gave up searching for us, or realised that the trails were all fake. It was a tossup; if he got bored of it quickly, then he wouldn't keep it up. But on the other hand, if I had annoyed him really badly, he'd want to kill me over completing the mission.
Funny how I was hoping for that.
I leapt through the trees, calculating the distance that the fight had taken us, the direction Kiba had gone and his speed to come up with a likely intercept vector. Depending on how fast Kidomaru was… how long it took him to turn back… well. I might get there first.
Kiba had managed to cover a surprising amount of distance, and I had to pace myself in running or I'd be no use by the time I got there. It was frustrating, with a side order of panic, because if we lost Sasuke…
Not going to happen, I thought firmly. We're not going to lose anyone.
I breathed in and out, and the last pulse of adrenaline settled, as I fell into the measured pace that would let you run all day.
It was a little odd being alone after heading out with a partner and group. It left me feeling tense, anxious, knowing there were enemies out there and I had no one to watch my back.
"Shit," Kiba cursed through the comm. It was a little fuzzy, so it was probably coming through Sasuke's microphone rather than a deliberate activation.
"Almost there, Kiba," I said, estimating how much further ahead he was. I'd found his trail, and while I wasn't exactly a tracker, he wasn't being stealthy either.
I could hear scuffling, but there were no shouts or cries of pain. That was… well, probably a good sign.
I put on a burst of speed, bounding through the trees and zeroing in on Kiba's chakra. I knew something was wrong when I couldn't sense Kidomaru, but there was someone there.
Or something, rather, as I got close enough to see the giant spider.
Giant, as in, the size of a horse, rather than your regular 'giant' spiders.
Eww. Was my first thought. Then summon, of course he has a summon.
There was no sign of Sasuke's barrel either, which added up to a not so pretty picture.
First problem first, I thought, hanging back to take in the scene. The spider was high in the trees, supported easily on a thick strand of web about as thick as my wrist. That wouldn't have been enough to protect it, but it was highly mobile, swinging to a new position every time it was attacked, and letting loose a rain of freshly hatched spiderlings that were about as big as Akamaru normally was.
Akamaru and Kiba were both in their Beast Human Clone and even I couldn't tell them apart. Actually… there was some kind of chakra bond between them, which only made more sense the longer I thought about it. How else did they merge characteristics like that otherwise? No wonder the Inuzuka were so attached to their dogs.
They were fighting well, but the smaller spiders were leaving trails of sticky web everywhere, and just kept converging, no matter how many of them they fought off. Sooner of later, they'd step on something and get stuck and then it would only be a matter of time before they ended up cocooned in silk.
Given the vast number of them, I was doubtful that Shadow Possession would be helpful. It was possible to contain multiple targets but there was a marked difference between ten and a hundred. And with my chakra running low I wouldn't be able to hold it long even if I did manage to catch them…
But the smaller spiders were coming from the larger one, which meant it was the anchor for the summoning jutsu. Get rid of that, and you got rid of them.
I cast another look down at Kiba and Akamaru, before tucking my fingers into my weapons pouch and spooling out lengths of ninja wire.
Shurikenjutsu and ninja wire were incredibly overlooked skills, I thought idly, as my shuriken arched through the air, trailing wire behind them. The fingers of my off hand clamped down on the wire, chakra holding and protecting the skin from the razor edge.
The shuriken reached the end of their freedom and curved, pulling back and winding around and around.
Gotcha.
I hauled backwards, taking the slack out of the line, and the spider made a squealing sound as its legs were compressed together.
"Kiba!" I shouted.
The two of them gathered themselves and jumped, twisting free of the mass of spiders on the ground and into a spin.
"Fang Over Fang!"
They drilled through the air, curving around until they crashed into the spider, equal force on opposite sides. I admired the precision and timing of it, even as the force of the attack caused the trees to shake.
Then it exploded into web.
"Gah!" I cried, flinging my arm up to shield my face. Kiba and Akamaru tore through it, the spinning of their attack sending it everywhere, even as it wound it tighter around them. They lost control of the technique, unable to change directions and crashed aimlessly around in the branches before burying themselves in the ground and coming to a stop.
I blinked, shook my hair out of my eyes, scanned the clearing to double check that everything was gone, and jumped after them.
"Have a nice trip?" I sardonically asked Kiba's foot, where it was kicking half-heartedly out of the ground.
He made a muffled sound in reply that I chose to translate as 'please help me'. His foot kicked again, and I gripped his ankle and hauled him backwards, a shower of dirt and debris and Kiba half wrapped like a coocoon.
I snickered. "Comfortable?"
He gave me a disgruntled glare. "Where's Akamaru?"
Akamaru, having released his Beast Human Clone form, had had much better luck wiggling out of his bindings. He barked once, in reassurance.
"Better off than you are," I said, kneeling and taking out the lightsaber to help cut away the web. "So what happened?"
"Dude appeared out of nowhere," Kiba said gruffly, holding still. "Did some freaky shit with kunai and everything, but I couldn't really fight back while holding the barrel. Course, once I put it down, he summoned that thing and nicked off with it."
"And even if you won, you'd have been too tied up to come after him…" I finished. Clever. Of course, that assumed he hadn't been able to just take Kiba out right away. "Was he still transformed?"
Kiba frowned. "Actually, no. He wasn't doing that weird black ink thing either. That important?"
I shrugged. "It means there's at least a time or usage limit to the curse mark. That's good news."
"Hallelujah. At least something is good." He grimaced and stood up, shaking as much dirt off as he could.
"Ready to go after him?" I asked, standing and stretching. Everything was starting to ache, now that I had a moment to breathe, but it was all minor injuries.
"When you are," Kiba said, with an assessing glance. His gaze lingered on my neck for a second, but the cut had clotted up and was no longer bleeding. He scooped up Akamaru and tucked him into his jacket.
I nodded. "Lead the way, then. The faster we catch up to him the better."
Them in possession of Sasuke was bad, but we were still at an advantage. They were separated. We were a hell of a lot closer to Konoha than to Sound. Kiba and I weren't far behind Kidomaru. We could still turn this to a victory.
Kiba led, jumping back to the spider mess, presumably to get a scent trail before taking off at an angle. I followed easily, trusting Kiba to be able to track our target.
"Well," Kiba said, breaking the silence as we bounced through the trees. "I tell you what… I'm not going to let Shino know I just killed a giant spider."
The unexpectedness of the comment caused me to snort. "Afraid he'll smother you in your sleep?"
"Nah, just make me feel like a horrible, heartless person." He grinned. "It's just as bad as making Hinata upset. And Kurenai-sensei backs them both up." He shook his head.
"Like you've never hit them with the puppy eyes," I bantered back. "You'd think you'd be safe with spiders, though. Arachnids eat insects and all that. Well, most of them."
He shrugged. "I just don't want to risk it." He wasn't really serious about it. It wasn't like it was something we could leave out of the report, and anyway, Shino was ninja enough to understand that an enemy was an enemy, no matter what they looked like. But the joke was… relaxing.
I smirked. "So, what? You pinned it down, and then me and Akamaru hit it with a Fang Over Fang?"
Kiba barked a startled laugh. "Yeah, lets go with that. Can't deny Akamaru the glory, right?"
"Exactly. And no one can be angry at him. It's a win-win situation."
Akamaru barked happily, sticking his head out of Kiba's jacket. He didn't look any worse for wear, and I was glad about that.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Okay, so, a rundown of abilities. Summons, obviously. You've seen the webs. Super strong, sticky and infused with chakra; they're beyond our ability to break with brute force. He seems to be able to manufacture weapons through a second type of secretion - the gold one - with a preference for projectiles, kunai, arrows, that kind of thing."
"I did wonder…" Kiba said, trailing off. "I mean, anytime you see non-standard equipment it usually means something."
"Right. He can also use that one as a form of armour, coating it over his body. I don't know what it would take to damage it, but he shook off a couple of explosions." The kunai it made had acted like kunai, meaning it probably had equivalent strength of metal, otherwise they would have broken or shattered when blocked with real metal. They hadn't.
Kiba frowned. "Akamaru and I have been working on a new move," he said. "It'll tear through pretty much anything but we won't be much good for anything else afterwards. It kinda takes a lot out of us."
I nodded thoughtfully. "Alright. So we have to make sure it works if we use it." I hesitated then added, "I threw pretty much everything at him. I don't know if we really have many options. Given that's he's in possession of Sasuke, I think taking him out is probably the priority. We'll just have to hope that the others have better luck at capturing their targets."
Because if it came down to blowing the mission, and letting him get away with Sasuke, I knew which option I was going to take.
"Works for me," Kiba said, with a nod.
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"I think he's stopped moving," Kiba said, sniffing the air.
I nodded. "Let's be on high alert then. If he's resting, he'll have trapped the area. No doubt about that."
"Good point," Kiba said, shifting Akamaru to sit on his head in a sentry position. "We won't let him get away this time."
"No, we won't," I agreed.
We cut our speed down and edged closer, eyes peeled for traps.
"Tripwires," Kiba said softly.
"Wait." I held up a hand and crouched down to look at it. "They're doubled. But…" I eyed the wires curiously, then stood and scanned the forest. I could see light glinting off several other wires, covering all the easy paths in.
I frowned.
Heavy in the air was the feeling of Kidomaru's chakra. It was too … thin, too dispersed for me to pinpoint exactly, like a haze or mist, but it was there. And knowing that he embued his webs with it led me to the easy conclusion.
"I think he has web traps as well. Web tripwires? I don't think it's thick enough to actually trap us…" I trailed off. "It's much lighter and thinner than the webs he used before. But it is everywhere."
"So, what? Like a warning system?" Kiba frowned at the trees, like he could see it.
"Exactly like," I agreed.
"So do we go around, or do we go through?" He cast a glance at me.
I breathed in, thinking swiftly. If we went around, we might get the advantage of surprise. Might. Depending on how far in each direction he had trapped, and how good we were at noticing it. If we went through, he'd know we were coming, but we wouldn't lose any time. We'd have to face whatever traps and plans he had for us, though.
"Through," I decided. "Try to avoid the actual traps though."
Kiba grinned, a little fierce and wild. "Now we're talking."
We crept forward, avoiding the traps we could see, and being wary of any surprises. Eventually, Kidomaru came into my range, along with Sasuke. Both were exerting some kind of drain or pull on the chakra around them, which made sense. The curse seal had been based on some kind of bastardised sage mode, after all. They were recuperating.
He'd chosen a good spot for it, too. Kidomaru sat atop the barrel in the middle of a field, far from the shadows of the trees. More than a clearing, it was probably a firebreak, a huge swath of clear ground between sections of the forest to stop the seasonal wildfires from travelling.
"So you've finished with Kyodaigumo already," he said. "That's … faster than I expected." There was an edge of irritation in his voice, but no particularly worry.
"Jerk," Kiba growled, and launched himself out of the trees and across the open ground. By the time he hit the dirt he was already running on four legs, the extra stabilisation and agility of the Inuzuka style taijutsu letting him pivot and dodge the incoming projectiles with increased ease.
And because Kiba was so much like Naruto, I had half expected 'tackle it head on' to be his opening move anyway.
Kidomaru wasn't using his curse seal - not even the first state - which was promising as long as we didn't let it lure us into a false state of security. He was plenty deadly without it.
I sprung left, trying to circle around and hit him from the other side. We had superior numbers and we had to take advantage of it.
It wasn't easy. For every attack I dodged, it seemed like there were another two coming. For every earth wall I created to block, my chakra drained just that little bit more. Every step closer I took, I was forced back again.
Play the long game, I could remember dad advising me. Use each move as a set up for the next.
The field of battle wasn't a shogi match, wasn't anything like a shogi match in the strictest of terms, but it was still good advice. For a second, I took it all in. Me standing here, Kiba there, the barrel with Sasuke, Kidomaru, my half crumbling maze of earth walls. It wasn't shogi but for a second it seemed like connect the dots.
I caught Kiba's eye, little passing between us except 'now'.
On his next pivot his hand reached back, grabbing a handful of smoke bombs and hurling them forward. My shadow lashed out, wall to wall to wall, around and closer and closer.
Shadow Possession Complete.
"Akamaru!" Kiba shouted. "Dynamic Marking!"
Akamaru howled in response and I heard Kidomaru's cry of disgust. The smoke was starting to clear now, and I could see their outlines once more.
"Alright boy," Kiba said, crouching down. "Inuzuka style; Human Beast Combination Transformation; Double-Headed Wolf!"
A huge cloud of chakra smoke gusted out and their chakra merged and combined. It was stronger, far stronger, than either of them had been before.
Synergy, I thought. The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts.
The result wolf was huge, too, maybe twice the height of a man at the shoulders, with wicked looking teeth and claws.
Kidomaru's chakra flared, the black ink of the first level curse seal spilling across his skin. But as I'd expected, it was weaker than it had been before, and even with the additional distance of my shadow, he wasn't able to escape.
"FANG WOLF FANG!" They howled, and leapt forward, spinning violently.
Wind blasted at me, gusts created my the spiralling, even before the drill slammed into Kidomaru. It happened too fast for me to disengage and I tumbled across the grass, thrown back brutally with the relayed force acting on him, the jutsu broken from the sheer strength of it.
I rolled, disorientated, pulling my arms and legs in close and tasting dirt.
Then everything went silent. I wobbled up onto an arm and knee, ready to try and fight if our last gambit had failed.
No attacks happened.
I pushed myself up, shaking my head as my ears started ringing and made my way back across the clearing. Kiba and Akamaru had severed the jutsu and were back to themselves, panting on the ground.
Kidomaru…
Kidomaru was in several pieces. There was scattered gold plating around that told me he'd tried to protect himself but it hadn't worked.
"That attack," Kiba said hoarsely. "Is so strong that it creates a vortex that can rip a man apart without even touching them. The spin is so fast we can't see while we're doing it."
"Good work," I said, eventually. "Are you okay to move? We need to-"
"-head back, yeah, I know," he said. "Give me a few minutes?" He looked wiped out, and his chakra was barely there at all. He hadn't been kidding when he'd said it took a lot out of them.
I nodded and went over to Sasuke's barrel to right it. It had been knocked over by the attack, just the same as I had, but seemed to be unharmed.
Then I straightened apprehensively and stared at the horizon.
"Kiba?" I said, and tried not to let fear tinge my voice. "We need to move. Now."
Because there was someone incoming, and fast.
And they were coming from the wrong direction to be our backup.