I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. ~ Douglas Adams
.
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We'd passed through Kubisaki pass on our way to the Land of Stone and it honestly hadn't struck me as anything very unusual.
This time, we were keeping our eyes open.
"It's creepy and I don't like it," Naruto determined as we circled the castle for the third time.
The castle was perched atop the cliff, watching over the pass like a guardian, but there was an easy path splitting off to the front gates. For being abandoned, it didn't look too shabby. It was a little battered maybe, but the walls and roof were still intact and it looked structurally sound and defensible.
And possibly a little creepy. I was almost certain I could see a light flickering in an upper window.
I made a noise of agreement. "I can't sense anyone inside," I said. "But-"
But it didn't feel normal, either. The castle was Something.
What that something was, I didn't know and couldn't explain.
Naruto didn't look enthused. "I bet it's haunted."
"It's unnecessary for us to enter the castle," Sai offered. "It is not part of our mission and we are not required to undertake exploration."
"Yeah, but we promised we would," Naruto said. He squinted at the castle once more then squared his shoulders.
He stepped forward to knock-
- And the doors swung open.
He screamed and leapt back, landing in a crouch and drawing kunai in either hand. I fell into a fighting stance automatically at the sound, and Sai did the same.
After a second, I felt incredibly silly.
"It just surprised me, is all," Naruto muttered defensively.
"The only one who keeps insisting this place is haunted is you," I said, sighing, because we weren't going to get anywhere like this. There was 'careful' and then there was 'paranoid'. "I'm sure there's an explanation that isn't ghosts."
It wasn't exactly a glowing reassurance, but he did look a bit more confident.
"Right," Naruto agreed. "That would just be silly. Ghosts. Hah. Who believes in those?"
He crept forward gingerly though, cautiously edging into the entrance hall. Nothing happened.
Sai followed, on high alert. I gave once last look behind us and went in.
If the outside had been in good condition for an abandoned castle, then the inside was impossible. It was well lit, the furniture was as new, and there wasn't even any dust.
This place wasn't abandoned.
The doors creaked ominously, and slammed closed, shutting out the outside world.
Not just shutting out the sight of it.
They shut it out. I couldn't even sense it anymore. Like it wasn't there anymore.
I whirled around to try and yank them back open. The door handle turned to sticky slime under my fingers, melting away and oozing back into the wall.
I leapt backwards, tearing my hand away.
Not slime. Sticky, flesh like something. The wall pulsed, the wood-and-stone imagery giving way for a second to reveal something that was almost muscular.
"Naruto," I said urgently. "Can you summon a toad?"
Naruto blinked at me, but tried. His hand pressed flat against the floor, chakra heaving and falling. "No? Hey! Why not? Oi! Gamakichi!" He ran through the handseals again.
I backed away from the walls, stepping carefully, even though they were once more disguised. "I think the castle is a summons. We're inside it now. Once the doors shut, it trapped us."
"Like the Pervy Sage's Toad Stomach technique," Naruto said, thankfully catching on. I forgot he'd probably seen it in action against Itachi.
"What does that mean?" Sai asked. He'd backed up too, turning and standing shoulder to shoulder with me. If Naruto joined in, we'd be in a perfect defensive Manji formation. There was something reassuring about it, knowing that he'd responded like that, instinctively defensive, even though he had protested this exploration all along. "Can we create an escape route?"
I shifted uneasily. The floor beneath my feet still felt like wood. But I wouldn't bet on it. I doubted anything around us was part of the original castle.
"Summoning jutsu like this make a self-contained chakra-space…" I said. "It's not something you can just cross. You have to break the technique." Like when Ibiki had tried to capture the Sound Four; like when Kajika's group had trapped sensei in a seal. "We might be able to damage it enough that we can cancel it, or we might have to disrupt it some other way."
And I wasn't sure what that would mean for us trapped inside. I really didn't want to dispel a summons only to find that it took us back to its homeland with it.
Still, that was probably the best option. If we attacked this outer wall… maybe a Rasengan, or if I used explosives…
"Hey," Naruto asked sounding troubled. He'd moved deeper into the castle, apparently unafraid now that it definitely wasn't ghosts. "Are these…"
A little reluctantly, I turned to see what he was looking at. Set against the back wall of the entrance hall were three packs. Almost identical to the ones we were carrying.
I crouched next to them, and carefully flipped the top open. It didn't take more than a quick look to pick out signs that these belonged to ninja. Actually…
"I'm pretty sure this is Ino's," I said. It was a surprise – even if there was a Konoha team running around, that didn't mean it had to be one we knew. Let alone one we knew well.
But it also made me uneasy. If she had been here, had taken her pack off, had been trapped like we were trapped…
Where was she now?
"Let's go find them," Naruto said.
I didn't voice the possibility that we wouldn't. I didn't even want to think it.
"I can't sense them," I said softly. It could have just been that the castle-summons was blocking my ability. We were, after all, inside it. The walls, the floor, the air, they were all saturated with its chakra. Maybe I just couldn't pick anything out, through all that noise.
I sealed the packs away into one of my storage scrolls. Who knew if we could come back this way, again. Maybe there was an exit somewhere else and the team had just decided to leave them behind.
I pressed my hands to the floor, letting ink spill out into an explosive seal. A last resort. If we couldn't find Ino… if they weren't in here… I could set it off and make the summons dispel. I hoped.
The next room was a dining room, with a long table set with seven plates. They were still warm, like the occupants had just got up and stepped out for a moment.
It was more than a little creepy.
We skirted around it, peering cautiously into the hallway. It was long and narrow, with many varied doors scattered along it. I would have called it a perfect ambush spot, except that we were already in the trap. There were several armour forms – statues? Displays? – along the length, that reminded me of nothing more than golems. Not that they had their own chakra reserves, but I wouldn't count them out.
"That picture is the same as the one in the entrance hall," Sai said, abruptly. "It is identical."
"Repeating design elements?" I suggested. "We know the whole thing is a fake." Or it could have been purposeful. For some reason. The man in the picture looked important, dressed like a lord, and people generally didn't display huge portraits everywhere for no reason.
"Man, I don't know where to start looking," Naruto complained. "I'll send out clones and then we can just follow them."
I nodded in acceptance. Naruto's Shadow Clones were useful for searching large areas in short amounts of time. I didn't know how much time we'd have to search.
Except the second he clapped his hands together in the seal was the second things started to go wrong.
It knows it's an attack!
The illusion of the building cut out, leaving pulsing walls of muscle, heaving and contorting. The floor was no longer stone, and pulsed under foot, rising and twisting like a wave. It bubbled up around my ankles and I leapt up, looking frantically for somewhere to land that wasn't dangerous.
I felt the catch and release of a replacement jutsu, one of Naruto's clones trying to pull me out, but there was nowhere to go. My new location was no better than the last, even as I tried to retreat for where the doors had been.
I pressed chakra to my feet, trying to skate on top of the summons and not let it catch and drag me down. Naruto's chakra was whirling as he formed a Rasengan to fight it off, and Sai was floating on the back of an ink bird, desperately twisting and turning into the air to avoid what looked like a lashing tongue.
"Split up!" Naruto shouted. "We still have to find them!" Some of his clones darted off, Sai flew higher both in an attempt to dodge and follow that order. I went backwards, putting distance between us, aiming for the entrance.
"… devour…" the walls hissed. "All who enter will be devoured…"
That was just. Lovely.
I stamped down, pressing a Touch Blast into the floor with my foot, and leapt away even as it surged up and dragged at my ankles. I wouldn't be able to keep this up. Already my legs were starting to burn with the effort, and if I didn't find somewhere safe to land…
The explosion was satisfying. The way the entire floor then retracted and I fell was less so.
I twisted in the air like a cat and prepared myself for what was below me. To my surprise, it was hard stone. I landed in a crouch, absorbing the fall with my knees, poised to jump away again if the ground turned out to be a trap. But it appeared as though it were actual stone, not genjutsu or transformation jutsu. There was no chakra running through it. Maybe this had been part of the original castle and I had been disgorged out of it… or maybe it had also been swallowed and simply remained intact inside the stomach…
I looked up, but the ceiling had surged together again, closing over and blocking any glimpse of my teammates. That wasn't good. We were separated now. And I'd seen enough horror movies to know that that wasn't a good plan.
It's a summon. Not a haunted castle. Naruto really got to you with that.
But I could sense something interesting.
Something that made being separated worthwhile.
Without the chakra of the summons interfering and blocking me… I could sense people.
I raced down the corridor, taking turns at speed and hurdling over piles and rubble. There were bodies littering the way, but they were old ones. Almost skeletons. Wearing armour. Not important.
I rounded the last bend and ducked. A kunai flew perilously close to my head and ruffled my hair.
Maybe shouldn't have surprised them,I thought a tad sheepishly.
"Shikako?" Ino said, looking absolutely flabbergasted. "What are you doing here?"
I was so glad to see her. And Shino and Hinata. The three of them were tending to a set of civilians, probably the missing lady and her party. They all looked uninjured, if a bit scuffed and upset.
I guessed I was the last person she expected to see. "Oh, you know," I said. "We were in the neighbourhood. Need a hand?"
"Like getting yourself stuck in here as well is so helpful," she retorted after a seconds pause. "Do you even know what's going on? How'd you get here so fast?"
"Yes," Shino agreed. "I would also like the answers to those questions. Why? Because we did not send any request for backup."
"My team was in the Land of Stone," I explained. "We were heading towards Kubisaki Pass when your contact told us that you hadn't arrived. So we diverted here to see if you needed help."
"Right," Ino said, not sounding very impressed. "But do you know what's going on?"
"It's a summons," I said. "Disguised to take the form of the castle and deal with intruders."
"Yes," Hinata agreed softly. "It was summoned by Gosa Kubisaki fifty years ago at the conclusion of a battle when his forces were overrun. They retreated here, but the enemy followed them. So he used the castle as a trap to get rid of them, and it's been here ever since." She was holding onto some old, yellowed scroll, so presumably there had been a written record of it somewhere in here. "Once they were inside they couldn't leave… and they either killed each other or starved to death." She gestured at the bodies.
"A summons staying around for that long… after the summoner is dead even…" I mused. "There's got to be an anchoring seal somewhere. No way there isn't." It was kind of impressive. In a horrible sort of way.
Did it even count as a pyrrhic victory? It wasn't so much a victory as posthumous revenge.
"Yes, we assumed as much, and attempted to discover and destroy them," Shino said. He adjusted his glasses. "However, we have been unable to leave this section of the castle, once we were taken here."
"Are there traps?" I asked. I hadn't seen anything on my way – hadn't even occurred to me. I should have been more careful.
Shino shook his head. "No more than it used against us before. It is simply that Hinata is the only one of us who has successfully managed to damage the castle. My Kikaichu are at a supreme disadvantage against this summon. Why? Because it appears to be insectivorous."
"And I don't really want to try and see if my jutsu works on it," Ino admitted, hands curling into fists.
"Yeah, no," I agreed. After what had happened last time, I didn't want her to try and see either. "We're not trying that."
I took a second to consider the situation. It wasn't dire, exactly, but it was serious. In this section of basement, we at least weren't at risk of being 'devoured'. But it didn't bode well for our long term prospects, either, given the bodies around us.
"Hinata," I asked. "Can you see any seals? Or scrolls? It would probably have to be in a section of the castle like this, or in a … separate chakra space." I wasn't exactly sure that you would be able to write a seal to summon something on the summons itself. That was a bit… circular. Wasn't it?
It was probably separate.
Crap. What if it's outside? No. If Kubisaki had retreated to the castle, that meant he'd summoned it from inside the castle. Therefore, the seal should also be inside the castle.
If it wasn't…
We'd try something else.
My planning was cut off by a deep rumbling, and the ground we were on shook, as though the whole section had been dislodged and was moving. Lady Kayo gave a short scream, and Ino reached out reassuringly to steady her.
Should probably hurry up, I thought grimly. Just because the danger wasn't immediate, didn't mean it wasn't there.
"Shino… what were your plans?" I asked. It might have been a bit belated, given the way I had just charged in and started asking questions… but he was the Chunin in charge.
But Shino looked at me seriously. It was hard to tell with his dark glasses, but his gaze seemed assessing. "Do you have suggestions?" he asked.
"The hardest part is going to be keeping them safe," I admitted, gesturing at the civilians. I kept my voice quiet, so they wouldn't overhear. "They can't travel out of this section, and four of us can hardly carry seven of them…" Maybe if Naruto were down here with his shadow clones; that could easily provide enough spare bodies…
Thoughts turned over in my head. "If Hinata can find Naruto and bring him back," I said slowly, a plan coming together. Hinata could break through the walls, but the others would probably be better off staying and protecting the civilians. "Then that shouldn't be a problem… I could go and find the seal…"
"By yourself?" Ino interjected as she came closer, voice a little doubtful. "It'll probably have defences if it's so important."
I shrugged. "Then that'll give you more time to get ready. I think we'll need pretty good timing if we want to escape safely." I was being purposefully vague on the details of the plan here, because I didn't really have details of the plan. It was basically the same plan we'd had before, only with more people involved.
"That's not even related to the point," Ino said. "I'm coming with you."
I thought about all the things I could say to stop her. And some of them? Some of them were cruel. 'You'll only be dead weight'.
I shrugged again. "Okay." That would leave Shino alone down here… but he nodded, so apparently he agreed with Ino.
Okay, then.
We re-grouped and explained the plan to Hinata, who was a pretty crucial part. With her Byakugan, she'd be able to keep an eye on everyone's progress, and thus make sure we were all operating in sync. Without communicators, it was about the best we could do.
The ground shook again.
We exchanged grim looks.
"Okay," I said. "Now." I drew the Sword of the Thunder God, flicked it on with a thrum of chakra, and focused. I slashed it through the air, patterning my chakra so that the blade extended like a wave or a whip, lightning lashing up into the ceiling. It carved through, leaving only the smell of burning flesh behind.
We leapt up, Ino and I splitting one way, Hinata going the other.
I bounced off a wall, foot planted on the head of an armoured form that was slowly moving, and slashed at the ceiling again.
There was a hissing, gurgling sound, and fluid started to gush from the walls, dripping down around us. I hissed as some of it splashed on exposed skin.
"Stomach acid," Ino said, wincing, either from disgust or pain. She had more exposed skin than I did.
"It really doesn't want us going this way," I confirmed. Which had to mean we were going in the right direction. Given that we only had a vague idea of where we were going, and that our surroundings could change at any given moment, that was actually a good sign. Well. 'Good'.
We went up another level and a tapestry turned into an extending, lashing tongue. I wheeled backwards, conscious of the fact that we couldn't stop moving or risk being sucked into the floor.
Ino looped ninja wire around her fingers and caught it in a twisted ring of wire, catching the ends in a kunai hoop and pinning it to the floor, effectively immobilising it.
"Thanks," I acknowledged.
She nodded, a quick distracted thing, as we kept racing on, leaping over grasping appendages and sliding through gaps where the walls closed together to catch us. I wielded the sword with brutal efficiency and carved us a path where we wanted to go.
We hit what would have been the upper landing, prepared for a final launch to the towers and…
Everything stopped.
The walls and floor reverted to the illusion. The acid vanished. The armour statues returned to places by the wall.
And a ghost walked out of the door.
"It did this before. The phantom," Ino said. "He's just another one of its tricks."
"Uhm, no," I said, staring at him. "I think he's really a ghost."
A ghost. A ghost. It crossed in front of us, didn't look at us, didn't react, and started up the stairs.
I hesitated a second, then followed.
If you'd asked me why I was so sure it wasn't a trap, I would have fumbled with an answer. The truth was, I could sense it, but hazily, as though it were smoke in the breeze. Not quite chakra, but maybe spiritual energy. There was clearly nothing physical to it.
It was an imprint. Something left behind after the death of the physical.
Maybe some actions, some journeys, were repeated enough that they were engrained in the fabric of the world, that even when they were no longer undertaken, they could still be seen? How many times had he walked this path, if it lingered after his death?
Or…
I'd never argued that souls could exist. Not now. How could I? How else could I be here? And you could quantify them and bind them with jutsu – that was the premise of Edo Tensei, however awful it was.
So, after that, was it such a stretch to believe that ghosts could exist too? That after the body died, the soul could linger, could still have the determination and will to influence things? Especially if there was something to anchor it to, a summons… or a seal?
We followed Kubisaki, and who else could he be but the lord who had summoned this castle to deal with his enemies, to the top of the stairs, and along to a room that held a dais on which rested a scroll.
He stopped then.
"He… brought us to the seal?" Ino asked, behind me. "Why?"
And the ghost bowed his head. "It has been…" he said, as though it took so, so much effort. "so long…"
He was talking to us. Had heard, and could answer. This wasn't just an imprint, repeating actions mindlessly them. He was aware. Alive, without being alive.
If you could be alive after death, then what was death, really? Were all those people that sought immortality really so crazy as they seemed? The boundaries of life and death were really rather more… flexible than they should have been.
I swallowed. Naruto is right. Ghosts are terrifying.
I pushed the considerations of the afterlife and all its related implications aside. It was too big to deal with now. Maybe too big to ever deal with.
"The seal," I said, instead, and stepped around the ghost to look at it. No way was I touching him.
The black ink on the table was basic, and at its most simple was merely a chakra funnel, gathering natural energy and providing it to the scroll in the middle. That was what anchored it, providing it the energy to stay.
"He is loyal," the ghost said. "I asked him to stay… to devour my enemies, and he did so. But it has been so long."
"And now he won't leave," I finished, only flicking a glimpse at him through my bangs. Gingerly, I unrolled the edge of the scroll, to see what it was.
Then I sucked in a sharp breath.
"This is the contract!"
Not just a summoning seal. But the actual contract as signed by every summoner. The edges of it were inked with designs of animals… chameleon. I guessed that made sense. Insectivorous, illusion users. Kubisaki's name was there, the very last on the list.
"What's that mean?" Ino asked. "In terms of us getting out of here."
"Return him home," the ghost breathed and started to fade away. "It is over…"
I cleared my throat. "I could disrupt the seal. Or destroy the scroll. I'm pretty sure that either of those things would disrupt the summon. But I'm not sure what would happen to everyone that was inside it. But we have another option…"
Ino seemed to click instantly. "Sign the scroll."
"It's not a perfect solution. Summons don't have to listen and obey… they've still got free will." Given the way that Gamabunta or Manda behaved, obedience was not guaranteed in the slightest.
"But we'd be able to dismiss it, at the least," Ino said. "Okay. I'll sign it."
I paused. "Are you sure?" Because she'd decided so fast. It seemed almost rash.
"Yeah." She nodded quickly. "It fits me more than it fits you. Aren't you glad I decided to come with you?"
"Always," I said. "Alright, sign quickly. I don't know what the ghost did to make it calm down, but it probably won't last."
She cut her fingertip on the point of a kunai and wrote her name in blood on the scroll, pressing a palm print to the bottom of it. The scroll seemed to shiver, the ink blurring and reforming.
It was accepted, then.
She cleared her throat. "Hello. This is Ino Yamanaka. I just signed your summoning scroll. Please return all the people you have swallowed to the outside world. Then … you can dismiss yourself and return to the summon realm."
We waited with baited breath.
"Your words have been heard," the castle sighed.
And then everything shivered. My feet were swept out from underneath me and the two of us tumbled together. I reacted like it was an attack, rolling Ino beneath me so I could stand, hands flying to my kunai-
- And we tumbled onto the grass. There was a tangle of limbs as approximately thirteen people, give or take a few clones, landed in the same spot.
Ino 'oofed', air wheezing out of her lungs. "Couldn't have said 'gently return', couldn't I?" she muttered.
I made a grunting sound, because someone's knee was making acquaintance with my kidneys.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted. "What's the big idea?!" He leapt to his feet, looking like he wanted to charge back at the castle.
But the castle was no longer there.
It was dark outside, late at night, but it was still clear to see that there was nothing but rubble remaining of the Kubisaki castle.
"But where did it go?" Naruto asked, baffled, and looked around as though it could be hiding.
Shino managed to extract himself from the pile, and adjusted his sunglasses. "Obviously the plan to disrupt the seal and dismiss the summons was a success. We simply were not required to create an escape route after all."
"Yep," I said, getting to my feet, and starting to help the others up. I took a quick headcount to make sure we were all there. Sai – the lucky one – had managed to avoid getting dogpiled entirely and was hanging at the edge of the group with an expression that almost counted as a frown. "You can thank Ino."
Naruto scratched the back of his head and then shrugged. "Okay. Thanks Ino! So… that's the mission complete, right?"
"Not entirely," Shino corrected. "Why? Because we should escort Lady Kayo to a safe destination. However, it is too late for travel over the mountain path, so we should establish a camp here."
"That's going to be fun," Ino muttered. "We don't have any gear."
"Oh, right," I said. "I picked that up for you." I unsealed their packs from my storage scroll. "And we have a tent and stuff. It's too late for us to go on, too, so we might as well camp out with you."
"Yeah!" Naruto agreed. "That sounds super fun, right Sai?"
"We shouldn't delay our return to Konoha," Sai said, which was a weak protest, since we'd actually wrapped up our own mission well under time frame. Tsunade wouldn't even be expecting us back yet.
"We're totally not," Naruto said, fairly. "We have to camp somewhere. So it might as well be here."
.
.
"So who's tall, dark and pale?" Ino asked, dropping to sit on the log beside me. She'd been busy helping all the civilians settle in while we'd made camp. I'd offered to help, but frankly I'd been glad to be turned down.
I stopped scribbling in my notebook and tucked it away.
"Sai?" I asked, tilting my head. "He's a Chunin who was assigned to us for our mission."
She stretched out, wincing as her shoulders cracked. "We were both sent on the wrong mission," she said.
I raised an eyebrow, not quite sure what she meant.
"Creepy haunted castle? That has you all over it. I should have got the cute new guy." She eyed Sai where he was sitting quietly, drawing. He'd been even more reserved tonight than he had been on our mission, and that was saying something.
I huffed a laugh, almost startled. "We could have used you for the interrogation," I admitted. "So yeah, you're probably right. We would have been perfect in opposite places."
Our shoulders bumped. "Well," she said, sounding more subdued. "What can you do? Have to cope with what you've got."
"Yeah," I agreed. "So. New summons, huh? How's that feel?"
"I'm not sure," Ino admitted. "I mean, it's totally unexpected. But I think I'll wait till I'm back in Konoha before I try summoning any of them. After that, it could go either way. But… if it works out, they could be really useful."
"Oh, yeah. Well, as long as you're into people-eating-castles," I teased. "Those are super useful."
In the morning, we split ways. I gave Ino a teasing warning to not be surprised by who their contact was – which only really ensured she was super curious about it the whole way there – and headed back to Konoha.