I felt two more of those strange chakra signatures below us, climbing to the fortress’s top level. Was it the werebat woman from earlier, and someone with her? My brief contact with her wasn’t enough to memorize how her chakra felt. We were not ready to fight two other chapechangers and an army of golems.
I took the book from Ino’s hand while we ran toward the balcony. It was a hefty tome, ancient. I sealed it away and handed the seal to Ino. I wasn’t sure why she picked this one up among all the others, but we could find out once we had escaped.
We left the base through the still-open balcony door. Chakra coating our feet, we ran toward the side opposite the balcony. If the flying woman took off from there, she wouldn’t immediately see us.
Below, the fortress swarmed like someone had kicked an anthill. Metal-clad patrols converged while more golems poured out. The strange chakra signatures I had felt crept closer toward the top floor. Now outside, I felt two more of those signatures, still inside the fortress, but near the base.
We would need a distraction. My preferred method was explosions.
My hands flashed with seals. Out popped two clones. I threw one of my prepared explosion packages.
Distraction-chan One and Two took the weapons and saluted, but instead of doing their job, both marched to Ino and sandwiched the startled blonde with a hug. Ino’s hands wrapped around my clones, but her confused eyes were on me. Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs N0veI.Fiɾe.net
“Not the time,” I growled, glaring at my clones.
The second just shrugged, stuck her tongue at me. With one last nuzzle and a kiss on best girl Ino’s cheek, that was almost a kiss to her lips, both clones flickered away from the fortress, leaving a blushing Ino behind.
This whole thing hadn’t taken more than a minute, but it was enough for the chakra signatures to arrive at the top floor.
I walked to Ino’s side and signed a message. Enemy, nearby.
For a few tense minutes, we waited. Based on what I could sense, the chakra signature had gone toward the room we searched, not the balcony. A few moments later, the first explosion rang out, then another and another.
Both clones had attacked the army of golems near the base entrance. Even from a distance, the heat from the explosions reached me. The reactions were immediate. The two on the top level ran toward the balcony, but they stopped there. The other two near the base of the fortress ran toward the outside, then one took to the air, flying.
In all the confusion my clones were causing, I felt Tenten’s and Karin’s chakra slipping away.
I turned to Ino, signed a message. Retreat.
Ino cast one last glance around, then nodded. We ran toward the floor and waited for another explosion, slipping away from the fortress. We darted through trees and over rocks, moving fast and low. The rendezvous spot was a few minutes away, going by ninja speed, but I wasn’t worried.
It didn’t take long until we arrived at the place. It was a small clearing, already set up with privacy seals to cover our retreat if needed. Karin and Tenten were already there, waiting for us.
The first thing I did was check them out. I landed near Karin, looking her up and down.
“I’m not hurt,” Karin said, swatting my hands away. I noticed she was hugging the ferret like it was a lifeline.
I turned to White. “Tenten?”
“I’m fine, we didn’t get in a fight.”
Ino approached. “What happened?”
Tenten took a deep breath. “Sneaking in was easy,” she started. “The inside was a mix of machinery and a madman’s workshop.” She looked at Karin. “We followed the pipes on the walls.” She didn’t say anything other than that.
Karin started. “We found a room with people trapped inside glass. The machines…” she shuddered. “The machine was extracting their life force.”
That at least explained what they were doing with the people they took and how that monster mobile fortress was being powered. Damn, from medieval fantasy straight into the matrix. What the hell was happening?
One of my clones decided that it was a good moment to die. Memories and impressions flooded my mind. I parsed through what my clone had seen. Distraction-chan, the second, after her explosives ran out, was accosted by yet another armored woman. Blonde, very outspoken, and dressed in similar metal armor to the flying one, just purple instead.
The battle was a blur. My clone was faster, but like the golems, the woman wouldn’t stay down. Worse yet, she transformed into a big, hulking thing capable of blasting stuff from afar with lightning.
Not long after, the other clone also died.
The first clone fought against the werebat woman. It was a mess. Somehow, my clone managed to bypass part of the genjutsu by using threads like I had done before. It was nice to know it worked somehow, but she wasn’t in a good shape to fight two at the same time, and got blasted by lightning once the hulking woman joined the fray after defeating my clone. I told the team what I had learned.
By my side, I saw Ino clench her fist. “We have to help them.”
Her eyes were firm, resolute. It wasn’t just her. Tenten and Karin also didn’t seem willing to leave the civvies behind.
Four pairs of eyes stared at me. I understood Ino’s feelings. Heck, I felt a bit of that too. But there were so many things to consider.
Instead of answering Ino, I turned to Karin and Tenten, grilling them for details.
“The process is slow,” Karin said once we arrived at the trapped people again, “but it is killing them.”
This was a mess all around. Talks with Hayase regarding the political situation came to mind. The Land of Rivers was allied with Wind, not Fire. It was technically not our jurisdiction to help. Interfering with stuff here could cause a lot of political backlash, especially for me.
And that wasn’t the only issue. If we could, somehow, defeat a whole army of golems and seemingly immortal chapechangers, what would we do with the civvies? Could we just pop the glass and take the people inside away? Then what? Leave everyone here to fend for themselves?
No matter how I thought about it, we weren’t equipped to solve this problem ourselves.
I could see a potential solution, however.
Sunagakure was, nominally, our allies. Gaara had become Naruto’s friend somehow. I blamed Fate-kun and the talk-no-jutsu bullshit. But still, they were our allies. We weren’t that far from Wind’s border. We couldn’t do it alone, but maybe we could enlist Suna’s help?
I turned back to the still waiting team. Then another thought occurred to me.
“Karin,” I said, turning to the redhead. “Did you sense someone there with very high levels of chakra?”
“Just four of the strange chakras.”
That answered it somehow. Tsunade wasn’t here. Not that I thought these people could capture the slug princess.
Karin looked toward the fortress, then to me. “One of them is coming this way.”
I nodded. “Clear any signs we were here, I’ll explain the plan while we move.”