Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. ~ Buddha
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We crouched out of sight and waited.
I could feel Naruto's chakra as bright as a lighthouse behind us, and I knew he would take being a lookout seriously. It was reassuring, even if subtlety didn't really feature amongst his skills. That was pretty much the reason that Shikamaru and I were going inside and he wasn't – we hardly wanted this to go the same way as the invasion of Kazahana Castle.
There was a gap in the patrol and Shikamaru caught my eye. This was it.
I nodded and we darted off, chakra boosting our speed while still maintaining silence. Shikamaru had the comparatively harder route; he had to get through the outside patrols, through the guarded doors and into the busy lower levels. I just had to get through the outside patrols, get up the walls without being seen, and find a way to break inside.
Comparatively.
The darkness helped cover our movements, and I made it to the walls without too many close calls. The lower parts of the machine were more exposed, caterpillar tracks like on a tank, gears for their movement, but above that everything was enclosed. It wasn't smooth all the way around, but ridged with columns and sections and pipes. I could see a few places that looked like promising entrances. Chakra made handholds completely redundant, but simply running straight up would be a lot easier to see. Instead, I darted up the wall in a kind of skittery crawl, staying as flat as possible.
I still felt incredibly vulnerable, out in the open, but every second that passed that didn't end in alarm bells ringing made me breathe a little easier.
About three quarters of the way up, there was a protruding platform, that bulged out and then dipped backwards. I would have almost said 'like a landing pad' except I really hoped they didn't have anything that could fly. Fortress tanks were bad enough, thank you.
At the top I paused, peeking over the edge of a flat portion. It seemed like a balcony, flat and clear, with large paneled doors leading into the stronghold itself. They were closed at the moment, but thrown open, they would open the entire space up.
There was no one inside that I could see, no chakra that I could sense, and so I pulled myself up onto it and padded forward.
A locked door was not really a challenge to a ninja, even when said ninja was being stealthy. Not unless it was a very good lock and a very good door. Given that this seemed to be a mobile fortress, it should have given me more trouble than it did, but they clearly hadn't been expecting an attack from this direction.
Poor planning on their part.
I tucked my lock picks back into my pouch, held the door open just enough that I could slide through the gap and then wedged it almost-closed. Leaving it open would be a clue that someone was here, but if I needed to get out in a hurry, then I probably wouldn't have time to pick the lock again.
The main room was huge and empty – probably some kind of meeting room. There was none of the wear and tear that suggested a gym or dojo, and it was too ornate; the floors some kind of marbled stone rather than anything practical. As I crossed the empty space, I saw a low dais against the wall, with a single chair centered to overlook it all.
Ah. Throne room. Really?
There wasn't much to see in there, however, and I slunk soundlessly over to the door and into the corridor beyond. Out of the throne room, things were more austere. The walls were simple metal, clean sharp lines that were functional rather than attractive. It seemed strange, almost alien, after so long with wood and stone. There was no one around, but even my breathing and heartbeat sounded loud in the silence, amped up by adrenaline. The ringing in my ears didn't really help my nerves, a constant reminder that there were things going on here that I didn't understand.
The corridor beyond the main room was well lit but empty. It was an eerie feeling as I ghosted along, on high alert for any one coming.
There were stairs close by, fairly wide and I expected they would be the main throughway for people heading to that main room. I ignored them for now, hoping that this high level would have more for interest. Shikamaru could explore below.
There were a few cupboards, a smaller meeting room and what looked like an observatory. Then I came across a furnished living room, with a connected bedroom. I spent several minutes investigating it, not certain what exactly I was looking for, but hoping I would find it. There wasn't anything that particularly stood out.
It was well furnished, with rich and expensive materials. The wardrobe was full of heavy, ornate robes. This was likely the room of the Daimyo or equivalent – rich, important, but not necessarily in a combat role. There was no weaponry or amour here and while it could have all been kept in an armory, there was none of the incidental detritus of weapon upkeep either – oil, cloth, whetstones.
Unfortunately, there was nothing that jumped out at me as interesting. There were no papers, or documents, or anything that really helped us. I slipped out of the room and kept looking.
Further along, there was a study.
Now this is more like it, I thought.
There was no guarantee that it would have anything worthwhile inside, but it was worth the time it took to investigate.
It looked a typical office – huge desk, a low table piled with scattered papers, bookshelves full of serious tomes, decorative artwork on the walls – and it took a second look before things started to stand out as not quite right.
The papers piled on the table were dirty and crumpled.
The 'artwork' was a huge browned paper with hand drawn and faded ink, spread out under a glass cover, with dozens of coloured dots pressed onto the glass.
I frowned at it, the marks looking familiar. It was old and faded, and I wracked my brains for anything I might have seen in a history book and came up empty handed.
Carefully, I flicked through the scattered pages, touching them only the barest amount.
Dirty, crumpled – taken from the villages? Why?
There was a strange collection of things. Newspapers. Pamphlets. Maps.
Maps.
I spread it open and glanced up at the image on the wall. Yes. Yes, it was. It was a map, an old, old map. The coastline was different – either wrong, or changed – and the countries weren't delineated in the way I was familiar with, which probably accounted for why I hadn't recognized it.
The dots then… yes. That was River Country. That was where we were.
They've marked Wind Country too, I though, mind racing. Did the different colours mean anything? If so, what? Had they attacked? Were they going to attack?
And why, exactly, were they trying to navigate from a map that old? Where had they even found that?
Where were they from?
And what were they looking for?
That was definitely a search pattern. These weren't random attacks. But I didn't know of anything of interest in the area. They were sticking low, to the coastline almost – so not looking for the Hidden Villages, which were further inland – and there simply wasn't much here.
I moved away, around the desk, hoping to pick up more information. There was a single heavy book set on the surface, leather bound and old, the kind of book that should be in a glass case and handled with protective gloves. Gingerly, I lifted open the cover, hoping that it was somehow relevant and not just a sign that this guy was obsessed with old books.
The Book Of Gelel it said, in heavy, elegant writing.
I turned the pages carefully, skimming more than reading. Half my attention was still on the door, making sure that I'd be aware if someone started coming this way. For a moment, I thought it was going to be useless – a royal family tree, some kind of trade route or agreement - and then I turned the page and staring up at me was a copy of the same map that graced the wall. It wasn't just the one either, there were others, close ups of certain provinces and towns, a whole landscape that barely resembled the one I knew.
The Empire of Gelel.
I stared at it. Was this an artefact from before the formation of the Elemental Nations? Or a copy of, at least. That was an incredible thought. Everyone knew there had been a continent spanning empire, in the days before the Sage of Six Paths had wrangled a wild world into some semblance of civilisation. There were plenty of ruins and abandoned cities across the Elemental Nations to prove it, though the details beyond that were very slim. I had looked into it, the possibility that this world was merely future of the one I had left, but there were too many fundamental differences for it to be true. To be honest, there was relief in that. If I had died and crossed between worlds, then everything I had left had continued on without me – was continuing now.
If I had been reincarnated in the far future, then everything I had ever known was dust beneath my feet.
Practically, there was no difference. I would never return, never see them again, never have anything to do with that life. It was gone, either way. But personally…. It mattered.
If it was true, if this was actual, written evidence of an empire lost to history, that made this book literally priceless.
But does that explain anything? Unless it had clues to some kind of ancient treasure…
It seemed a bit far-fetched.
Then again, my life is far-fetched. Improbable didn't equal impossible. Still, I didn't know enough to say for sure.
I flicked onwards, hoping something would jump out at me. 'Here lies the artefact of sacred power' maybe? Something did, but it wasn't what I expected. Math; pages and pages of complicated math. It almost looked like chakra conversion equations, proto-fuinjutsu. It was well beyond my level and I paged through it, wonderingly. What was this?
The sense of approaching people drew my attention. They were only at the stairs, which meant they could go either way, but it was a reminder that I wasn't alone here. I'd been lucky to find the level deserted; late at night wasn't exactly a time for meetings with the boss.
I bit my lip and considered the book still laid out on the desk. I thought it was related to whatever was going on here, but I didn't know, and I didn't have time to read it properly to find out. The obvious answer, then, was to take it. If it was important, though, it would certainly be missed.
The chakra equations looked terribly important, besides, and there was a reasonably large part of me that was dying to have a spare week or two to try and decipher them. That was a terrible reason to consider taking it. That was stealing.
And yes, I knew that it was terrible morals to be okay with taking things for the sake of the mission and find the exact same scenario horrible otherwise. That, however, was a state of mind that Konoha tried very hard to instil in us, with corresponding rewards and punishments for those who followed or broke the system. When you had an army of people who were unlikely to be caught stealing, you wanted them to reject the choice all on their own.
The oncoming chakra presences bypassed the bedrooms, turning towards the study and made my choice for me. I picked up the book, trying to be as gentle as possible, and stacked it carefully in my backpack.
I ducked out the door, slipping up the wall and sticking to the ceiling. People rarely looked up. Still, to be extra careful, I layered a False Surroundings genjutsu over myself and crept slowly along the corridor. The two people were getting closer, and would pass right underneath me.
My palms felt sweaty and I flexed them on the cool metal of the ceiling.
It was the maybe-lord whose room I had seen – the same heavy robes – and a woman in armour. Not the same one that had retrieved Temujin, which was probably important.
"What do you think of Temujin's tale?" the lord asked, striding along.
"Farfetched," she bit out in return. "Lying to cover his failure is more likely, Haido-sama."
Haido chuckled. "I don't think lying to me has ever crossed Temujin's mind. He is far too loyal."
The woman made a 'tch' sound. "It could cause trouble if it's true," she conceded. "And it might explain why we haven't heard from Ranke's fleet. But we haven't run into anyone else with those powers."
Fleet? I didn't actually like the implication of numbers that a word like 'fleet' brought up. And that was, what, a nautical term? Boats?
"I suppose it was too much to hope that they remained primitive and uncivilized in our absence," Haido said, swinging the door to the study open. "Still, we have seen very little to foster the idea that they are a true threat to our plans." He paused, turning to look at the woman who had faltered a few steps back. "Is there a problem, Fugai?"
She turned slowly, tilting her head. From my position I could barely see the prominent flare of her nostrils.
Scent tracker, shit. My pulse doubled, and I tried very hard to keep my breathing shallow and quiet. Blocking scent was a much, much harder tact than sight or sound or even chakra, and there was no jutsu I knew that would eliminate a scent trail that had already been laid.
She stared back up the corridor, nose twitching and eyes darting around. "No, Haido-sama," she said after a moment. "There's nothing."
They went inside and shut the door. I let myself breathe a tiny, tiny sigh of relief.
Then I remembered that I would only have a few seconds before they noticed what was missing, dropped to the floor and bolted. I was almost at the throne room when I heard the study door slam back open and the heavy clatter of footsteps. The alarm went off, drowning almost everything out, and I dove through the doors, across the balcony and down the side of the building, sticking to the metal with barely enough grip to control my descent.
Halfway down, I looked below to find a landing spot, only to see the milling of Golems all around.
Crap.
I increased the chakra to my hands, juddering to a halt.
Can't go down, can't go up, can't stay here… It didn't actually look like I had a lot of options. That was not so good.
What about across, then? River Country was heavily mountainous, the whole countryside flattened out into levels like an excellent topographic map. That meant that no matter where you were, there was likely to be a cliff nearby. In the dark, it was hard to tell, but the stronghold had driven down a passage between two higher points, then stopped where the narrow ravine had opened out into a flat.
I pushed to my feet and went sideways, running horizontal along the stronghold until I reached the back. The sheer area of it made me perfectly aware I had explored very little of the inside, but I couldn't regret that now. The cliffs were too far away to jump to but I had kunai and ninja wire and I was pretty sure I could make a throw.
The first kunai clattered against the stone, but failed to find purchase and I hurriedly reeled it back in before it dropped to the ground. They hadn't seen me yet, but I could hear the shouting and cursing down below as security was tightened.
The second attempt stuck and I gave it a fair tug to make sure. Then I jumped before I could have second thoughts.
My stomach bottomed out at the sensation of free fall, barely affected by the thin wire swinging me sideways instead of going straight down.
I hit the wall with a heavy thump, going too fast for comfort and much lower down than I was happy with. I took a few moments just to breathe and promise myself that I wouldn't do that again. Really, Tarzan made the whole 'swing to safety' thing look so easy and comfortable.
Then I scrambled upwards, breeched the top of the cliff and started to loop around to where we'd left Naruto.
I hope Shikamaru made it out okay.
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Shikamaru was already waiting anxiously by Naruto when I got back.
"You made it!" Naruto whispered, not quite quietly enough. I hushed him, hoping the sound hadn't carried.
"Sorry about the alarm," Shikamaru muttered. "They saw me."
Hadn't I set it off? "I was on my way out, anyway." I shrugged; it didn't really matter, did it? "But we're going to need to be careful. One of them was a scent tracker. I'm pretty sure I lost her on the walls, but if she picks up our trail again..." And I had little doubt she would. A well trained bloodhound was almost impossible to shake, and a well trained Inuzuka even more so. I didn't know where on the scale she would fall, but better safe than sorry.
Shikamaru groaned and rubbed a hand across his face. "Even better. We need to move, then. There's no point sticking around, if it's just going to get us caught."
"But did you find anything?" Naruto asked eagerly as we took off.
"I know what they're doing with all the people," Shikamaru said flatly.
I cast a glance at him. "How bad is it?"
His lips were set in a grim line. "They're using them to power the stronghold."
I blinked.
"What?" Naruto croaked out.
"They're keeping them in some kind of stasis pods, all hooked up to this generator. I followed some of the piping; it goes right down to the main engine."
"Chakra batteries," I breathed. It sounded very much like The Matrix, dozens if not hundreds of humans all hooked up to provide power… It explained why they were taking the villagers, and how they could manage to power such a creation without copious supplies of fuel.
"There's more too," Shikamaru added. "About how they made the golems. The bodies are formed with some kind of clay, then just activated with the machine."
That kind of chakra siphoning and redistribution was … incredibly complex. I'd never heard of it being used on more than an individual scale, though that could partially be because ninja didn't like sharing techniques. Still, it wouldn't be simple to set up. It would need knowledge… the kind of knowledge that was in the book I just took.
"And," he continued. "They're looking for something called the 'Stones of Gelel'."
"Gelel?" I repeated. "That's- no wait. Stones of?" Because the way the book had read I'd almost assumed that 'gelel' was a word for chakra, or more generically, power. But if it wasn't, if it was talking about a specific item… "The stone in Temujin's sword. It reacted to my chakra. Like an amplifier." There was something here, and I chased the idea, but the conclusion stayed just out of reach. I blew out a breath. "Never mind. I saw the map they were using. All the points that they're searching. They aren't the only group, either. There's another one. One that they called a fleet."
"Where?" Shikamaru asked tersely.
"West, along the coastline, mostly. They're going right down into Land of Wind, though."
"Wind? We have to warn Gaara," Naruto said, alarmed. He didn't wait for an answer, merely changing direction.
"We'd never get to Hidden Sand," I disagreed, even as I followed him.
"No, but Wind Country will have border patrols too," Naruto countered. "Besides, if we know where these guys are attacking, then we can help. And we've already sent messages to our border."
We couldn't really keep an eye on the stronghold anymore, not without having to fight. And Naruto was right, we had sent messages. And Naruto had clones out that were hopefully warning the surrounding villages. There wasn't much we could do here and now.
"Shikamaru?" I asked, uncertainly.
He sighed. "Troublesome. Yeah, I think we should see what they're up to in Wind Country. It could be important."
Well, that was settled then.
We didn't make it the whole way that night. It was late, and dark and we needed sleep. We went far enough to hopefully get away from Fugai and, despite Naruto's protest, set up camp. He might have had boundless energy, but if we did end up fighting I didn't want to be wrecked by the time we got there.
Not that I ended up sleeping. I took first watch and eagerly cracked open my stolen book, reading by the faint light of chakra from my hand. It wasn't easy going. The print was old and faded, and the wording was archaic. A fair bit of what I learnt was guess work and assumption.
With a little bit more direction – stones of Gelel – it was a bit more productive. The stones were what they used for everything, it seemed, using them like batteries. Even if I was only skimming through, I could see multiple use of them – agriculture, engineering, medicine, all with their own chapters – but I was more interested in where right now. There was a huge section on the mining of them, how they were cut, how they were treated, how the mine was formed, but nothing on where the mine actually was.
No wonder they're searching, I thought, flicking back a few pages. These stones… I wondered how on earth this empire had fallen. Even with this one book there was just so much potential.
Potential I didn't really want to see in the hands of anyone who thought that invading and randomly attacking innocent villages was a viable strategy.
I marked down the locations of attack on my map – all of them along the main trade route marked in the book. It made sense, if the stones had been a major export. But I wasn't so sure. If they'd gone to all the trouble of withholding the location of it from written record, I doubted that they had loaded the stones out the front door. But in the end, we weren't looking for the mine. We were looking to stop them from finding the mine.