"Are you sure my presence is going to be much of a deterrent?" Jiraiya sighed, stretching the ankle that was crossed over his knee. Tsunade's lips thinned slightly, but she didn't say anything. He tried again, raising his voice slightly. "If I didn't know better, I would say that you were just trying to keep me within Konoha. Are you afraid I'm going to do something stupid like walk into Ame and try to talk Konan down?"
His tone was placid, but Tsunade knew it hid an element of danger. He was emotionally compromised. He knew it, she knew it- hell, Keiko probably knew it, although her poker face had become exponentially better in the course of her employment.
That didn't mean he would react well to her admitting that yes, she was at least partially motivated by fear that he would get his fool head bashed in because that was what happened when fools rushed in.
"What do you think the Tsuchikage is thinking, if he is at all?" she said instead, conjuring up more irritation than she really felt for the missive she had received pressuring and shaming Konoha. He couldn't really believe that Konoha was more liable for their traitors' behavior than anyone else was. It was unprecedented to hold a missing nin's country of origin responsible for their crimes, after they'd been disowned. But Oonoki was trying to force Konoha to pay reparations for what Orochimaru had done years after he had been branded a dissident- something about that damn base in Grass country?
Jiraiya took the bait for now and shrugged.
"Probably wants to get the first rhetorical blow in, before you accuse him of espionage. Now if you retaliate, it just looks like you're pissed that he wants you to take responsibility for what Orochimaru did in foreign countries."
She had already guessed as much. That didn't make it any less annoying.
"What a moron," Tsunade groused, fanning herself with the letter she'd been reading. "As if I'm just anxious to get into another international problem when we already have Akatsuki on our hands. He's really not that important."
Inwardly, she winced. Even when she was trying to change the topic, she couldn't help but reference the organization that was making her old teammate so broody. It wasn't as if their previous subject –Orochimaru- had ceased to be a sore spot either, but he was long past the point of being saved. Konan was too, but if she knew her teammate he was retaining the hope that if he could just talk to his old student she could be persuaded to leave Akatsuki.
Jiraiya was understandably torn up about discovering that someone he had long mourned was in fact alive and associated with a terrorist organization that had vowed to murder one of his godchildren and had assaulted the other godchild. It was the sort of awkward revelation that you couldn't quite look past, no matter how much you liked a person.
She hadn't entirely been lying when she said she hoped that his presence in the city would deter this 'Tobi' from coming back to harass Aiko. If he had really just wanted to take her with him, he would have.
No, that incident had been about something else. It was quite probably meant for someone else. Tobi had stated his intentions, terrified the teen, and batted around an entire ANBU squad to make the point that he could do as he pleased. It might be a play against Jiraiya in specific, or perhaps Aiko's captain- Kakashi had a lot of enemies. Or Tobi might just be picking a high-value target with a decent reputation to make the point that he was powerful to enhance his own reputation.
For the moment, she was acting on the hypothesis that Tobi hadn't necessarily been bluffing about returning. He might be back, if only because failing to follow through would undermine the effect of his first foray into Konoha. If that happened, it would be better to have another s-class shinobi on hand. It wasn't like Jiraiya found spending time with his goddaughter to be much of a trial. They'd shared several meals while he'd been back from what Tsunade had half-heartedly heard while busy in her own work.
"Hime, you can't keep me here forever. I'm of a lot more use in the field and you know it."
She was saved from having to come up with a response by the blur of movement that occurred when Aiko used Hiraishin to flicker into the office and then immediately ducked and rolled away, popping back up on the floor with the strangely wary expression she used when returning from foreign offices.
'I only tried to swat her the once,' Tsunade thought rather sulkily. It was just a reflex to hit ninja that suddenly appeared a few feet away.
"Tsunade-sama, the Mizukage would like aid." Her voice was unusually high, and Aiko all but ran her words together. Tsunade idly noted that one of her bangs appeared to be scorched, much more interested in the content of the girl's words. Jiraiya had perked up in obvious interest. "She called me because her rebels or dissidents or whatever took note that half her Jounin were out surrounding Ame and they're trying a coup."
"Well, there's your field work," Tsunade noted with biting irony to her old partner. She snapped her fingers—and the ANBU stepped into sight, ready for orders. "Put the village on lockdown, and make sure Shizune knows what's going on. I'm going to go take care of this personally."
It was largely her fault that so many had been deployed to Ame, after all. Or her responsibility, rather. She couldn't fail to come to her allies' aid, but nor did she have the excess of powerful teams on standby to be deployed at the moment. There was no point in risking genin teams on this. No. Three S-class shinobi were standing right in the office, and that was the kind of backup that could make a significant difference in a pinch.
"Aiko-chan, would you be a darling and take us to the Mizukage?" She straightened her haori, wiggled her feet inside her heels, and strode over to the girl even as Jiraiya held out an arm gallantly.
Aiko looked downright confused at their lack of urgency, but gamely slid her hand under her godfather's arm. That was one of the things that separated the experienced shinobi from new shinobi. Worrying wouldn't speed their feet, and they had fought in so many battles that this was just another day out. In contrast… this would probably be Aiko's first large scale battle, wouldn't it? The great nations had been hanging in tenuous peace for so long that the closest thing she'd have experienced would have been border problems. "Come on now," Tsunade added gently, placing a hand on Aiko's shoulder. "Is this enough conta-"
She cut off her own sentence, because they were suddenly a continent away and in the middle of a firefight. The Mizukage appeared to be strangling a young man with her bare hands. Her fidgety bodyguard was fending off some scar-faced swordswoman, but the older bodyguard was nowhere to be seen.
"That was fast!" Terumi called out, sounding not exactly cheerful but not stressed either. The tension in her jaw showed the lie. "I'm afraid that they haven't donned a convenient uniform, so I've just been killing the ones that attack me. That should work for you as well, since they'll know that Konoha nin are my allies."
"Sounds acceptable," Tsunade replied, peering around her surroundings with interest.
At her voice, Terumi actually jerked around to verify the identities of her backup, mouth hanging open. She dropped her prey and shook her head slightly. "Well, this I didn't ex-"
She was cut off by the imaginative shriek of "harlot!" from a new opponent and then the Mizukage was distracted by another fight.
"Nice place they have here," Jiraiya deadpanned.
It looked like hell. Blood was running in the gutters from uphill, which didn't bode well for that residential district. Most of the doors were fastened shut as if civilians were cowering inside, but some had clearly been burnt and then put out with powerful water jutsu. The destroyed building faces were better than a gutted ash pit of a city, but they weren't going to do anything for Mist's tourism.
Tsunade and Jiraiya stayed together, falling back into their old teamwork with the precision and grace of two expert musicians playing a familiar tune. The Mizukage hadn't been wrong when she said that fights would come to them as they basically steamrolled through the village with the Mizukage, clearing streets and breaking up the other fights they found. After a while, Tsunade noted that Aiko was darting ahead of the small group of powerhouses.
"Do you think she painted her kunai with nail polish, or does someone actually sell those?" Jiraiya sounded mildly pained. He was paying more attention to his goddaughter's strange antics than his own fight. After a while, it did get repetitive to smack down C and B class shinobi who really didn't stand a chance.
"Oh, dear," Mei's sissy swordsman breathed, clearly having overheard and then turned to see what Aiko was doing. He had looked just in time to see her dart through a line of the rebels that crowded the streets (the loyalists had figured out mid-battle to re-tie their hitai-ites around their arms as identification). The way that everyone she passed erupted in localized explosions, sending blood spurting out in a wave behind her, was sort of beautiful, if macabre. But…
"Did you see her do more than touch any of them?" Mei asked, caught between amusement and curiosity.
Jiraiya had already turned back to his own fight and Tsunade said nothing. She hadn't seen Aiko touch most of them—but when she did, it was literally just a touch. Tsunade wouldn't be sharing that, though. It was good to be on peaceable terms with Kiri, but that didn't mean it was a good idea to help them dissemble a technique that was unique to Konoha. At least, she assumed it was unique to Konoha. It almost had to be Hiraishin-aided at the least.
Her hands were smeared with blood and her coat spotted with it, but Tsunade felt a grim sort of satisfaction when less than an hour's work confirmed that Kiri was still Terumi's village.
She had to cringe when Aiko found her way back to them, all but soaking in blood. There were semi-clean lines across her face where she'd clearly tried to wipe her nose and mouth clean, as well as her eyes, but it was unattractive at best. "Uzumaki, I think that you're going to have to perfect whatever it is you've been doing," she commented.
Aiko just shrugged. "I was doing well, and then I stupidly tried to go back for one I'd missed and was too close to an explosion," she explained without really explaining at all.
Tsunade let it slide. "Mizukage-dono!" she called out, striding towards where she had last seen the other woman.
After all that had been settled and they finally went home, Tsunade caught Aiko's arm and then jerked away, because the cold blood felt slimy under her fingertips. Uncaring that the office they had just teleported into was already occupied by Shizune, two ANBU, and a couple of slack-jawed idiots from the downstairs offices, she rather bluntly raised her question. "Uzumaki, what was that 'touch of death' monstrosity you had going on?"
The teenager blinked twice, and tugged on her shirt sleeve with her thumb and forefingers. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Hokage-sama," she said in a tone that couldn't be more innocent. The image might have been convincing if she wasn't dripping blood on Tsunade's nice carpet.
Tsunade snorted loudly. "I'm sure," she said dryly. She waved the girl off, eyes flickering over to the people waiting for her attention. She had more immediate concerns than dragging technique details out of a reticent teenager. For all she knew, Aiko might claim it as a clan technique, in which case even the Hokage didn't have a right to an explanation.
~~~
'That was more than I had planned when I got up this morning.' Feeling the Mizukage calling her through her seal had put a pit of a damper on breakfast… come to think of it, how long had Sai waited for her to come back? She winced. He'd need an apology in the morning. Aiko had been all but sopping wet when she trudged out the Hokage's office—and then politely thought better of it, transporting herself directly to her apartment. She wrung the clothes out in her bathtub and then carted them directly to the washing machine, not caring if anyone saw her in her underwear on the brief trip. She might have gone to her safehouse instead, if she had gotten around to moving clothes over already. That outfit certainly wasn't going to be re-worn tonight.
Aiko let her head rest against the tile and tried to massage shampoo as deeply into her hair as possible to force out any hint of blood from clinging to her scalp. She ended up doing that three times before she was satisfied.
It was relatively easy to tag an opponent and move away before she destroyed the seal as well as the flesh it had been stuck to. She had done something similar while fighting Mukade's puppets, but she now knew that fighting a large group of people with that technique was a bit different. For starters, it got a lot messier.
'It didn't help that I was impulsive enough to move backwards,' Aiko noted with a little bit of humor at her own expense as she dressed. She had fallen into a routine, and then stupidly failed to adjust how long she was waiting to destroy the last seal she had set to compensate for the fact that she hadn't moved far enough away to clear the blood splatter.
She glanced down at her own hands, as if expecting to see that they were still covered in blood. They were immaculate, of course.
They shouldn't be. They were always bloody. All she ever did was kill people. How was it that Tsunade had described her variation on Hiraishin- a touch of death? Wasn't that the exact same phrase Kakashi had used months ago after he'd first seen it?
Apt.
A strange emptiness ripped through her chest, leaving her bereft and mildly shaken. What kind of person was she becoming? She didn't regret killing Shou or any number of other people. If she was in the same situation, she would make the same choices. But that didn't mean she was comfortable. God help her, she loved fighting, and thought of killing as something that was just attached. A side-effect that meant she'd done well on her mission. The fact that she wasn't wracked by self-hatred for that probably said something terrible about what kind of human being she was.
Her first eleven or so years in this world hadn't been like that. Mostly, they had been dull and repetitive. But there had been some sort of comfort in the daily maintenance required to keep house and raise Naruto. This world hadn't changed, but she had.
'I'm being stupid. I'd never be happy if I just quit to become a housewife or whatever.'
Aiko flopped down face-first on the couch, letting her right arm flop off the side and curling the left into her ribs. Still. It would be nice to remind herself that she was capable of doing something that wasn't destructive.
"Auurrgghhh!" She bared her teeth and made an incredibly hideous, aggressive groan into the couch cushion.
What was she trying to prove to herself? She'd had non-destructive hobbies before, and they hadn't solved anything. Re-writing children's stories and movies hadn't made her feel any better when she had started her actual work, except as a distraction.
Was she even capable of another doing anything else at this point? Tsunade had to be completely fucking mad to have entrusted her with Fukiko.
She paused, mulling over that line of thought.
Now she was mildly curious as to whether she was capable of doing something that was purely helpful. Like… medical ninjutsu, maybe. That wouldn't be a total waste of her time, would it? She wouldn't want to get good enough that she got pulled back to the support… as if that would happen at this point, she realized sheepishly. Still. She didn't want to be a medic nin, but wouldn't it be nice to be capable of at least patching herself up?
Aiko deliberately didn't think too deeply into what she was doing when she went straight to the archives that Tsunade had finally allowed her unilateral access to and dug around in a completely different section than usual. It absolutely was not allowed for her to take the material out of the building, but she didn't care. She unrolled a scroll on low level, incredibly basic medical ninjutsu—the kind of thing that Itachi had done to encourage her cuts to heal—and read it from top to bottom.
Then she went and scrubbed the blood off the bathroom tiles, because that scroll was god-awfully dull and she needed to do something a little more mentally stimulating to wake her up to the point where she was willing to try a new jutsu on herself.
With the bleach thoroughly washed off of her flesh, she settled down on her bed with the half-rolled scroll on her lap. Aiko stared blankly at it for a while, as if it would suddenly make some sort of intuitive sense. The first step was 'convert your chakra to medical chakra'. How the hell was she supposed to do that? She knew it came naturally to some people, and if there was an easier way of accomplishing such a thing, it would have been detailed. That just meant that either she had the aptitude or she didn't. Uncertainly, she read the thing again, as if inspiration would come. When it didn't, she rested her head in her hands and tried to think.
Okay. Her first approach wasn't working. Maybe it would make more sense to try converting her chakra once she had something in mind to heal? She did work a lot better with a goal. With that in mind, she unholstered a gleaming orange kunai and brought the tip down the inside curve of her left calf to make a thin scratch. With her constitution, it would heal overnight, if she couldn't fix it. Easily, she flicked the resulting blood off and put the blade away before channeling chakra to her right hand.
How hard could this be? Benign chakra. All she needed was chakra that didn't hurt anyone. Surely she was capable of that. Sasuke had managed that, for crap's sake, and he was hardly nice nurse material. Tons of people did this. Karin had managed to teach it to classes full of pre-genin. She didn't have to be the next Tsunade. She just had to be capable of making something that didn't hurt people.
She tried touching the cut with her water-natured chakra to get an understanding of what had to change. That didn't help. She tried to channel chakra from each of her gates in succession. She tried everything that seemed half-plausible and a dozen things that didn't. The little bit of blood seeping out of the scrape almost seemed to be taunting her. It took hours for her to admit defeat.
"Fine."
Feeling tired, Aiko let the energy she had been directing to her hand fade and straightened her back, lifting her head to stare unblinkingly up at the ceiling. Fine, she couldn't do it. Experiment conducted and failure. Her limbs had never felt so heavy, but she responsibly pulled her boots back on and went to return the scroll before anyone noted it missing. Then she went to her safehouse and slept.
That had been stupid. She should stick to what she was good at.
Still, the first thing she did when she woke up was hold her palm in front of her face and try to make it glow with minty chakra.
~~~
Konan took a deep breath, and carefully extracted a bit of water out of the paper flower in her hair to ensure that it was as crisp as possible. The dampness in Ame did her ninjutsu no favors, even if it was hardly crippling. Still, she had been feeling much better. The lingering sluggishness in her hip had just suddenly been gone last week.
She ceased fidgeting when she was joined by the more punctual among Akatsuki. Hidan trailed in almost last, sullen and reticent. He had been complaining about being confined to headquarters, but wasn't bold enough to disobey Pein. Still, his whining about the need to sacrifice to his god was becoming a nuisance.
It was as if all the air went out of the room when Pein graced them with his presence. Konan examined him fondly, eyes tracing the way that his regal posture made him seem intimidating and shying away from the reminder that he was using dead flesh to walk among them. It wasn't for a mortal to question her god. He was going to bring peace, even though he had to resort to military might to do it. His methods were his own, when the prize was so incontestably wonderful.
The only shame was that his servants had not been doing an adequate job enforcing his will. They still only had one bijuu.
"Zetsu and Tobi will retrieve the jinchuuriki of the four-tails."
Konan repressed a quirk of the lips at Pein's timely words. Others seemed less pleased, but held their tongues. They were learning, then. She had half-feared that Hidan would argue that he should be sent out. But Zetsu and Tobi could travel and accomplish this task with more expediency than another team.
"Kisame, you will be maintaining the rain in Ame in my absence."
Her amusement froze. That was the first she had heard of this. She waited patiently for the order to accompany him—she usually did. But that did not happen. He administered several warnings and reminders about what had to be done in his absence, the potential danger posed by the shinobi circling Ame (most of the men present seemed to roll their eyes) and then he said that she would be in charge in his absence.
Her heartbeat quickened. Had she displeased him?
As soon as they were alone, she dared to ask. "Pein-sama?"
He gave her an indulgent look, so she felt free to press forward.
"Where is it that you go?"
"Do not fear." He turned away dismissively, his cloak floating behind him. "I will be back soon for the extraction."
~~~
"Erp!"
Karin's mouth fell open and she sat straight up, inadvertently knocking over the med kit she had been painstakingly restocking.
"It's gone!" She looked at Sasuke with wide eyes, and put a hand to her chest.
He had no idea what she was talking about.
"That chakra signature," she snapped out, exasperated. "In the rain, it's just gone."
Kakashi had been twenty feet away, having just returned from a patrol route, but suddenly he was right by Karin's side. After a few moments, Yamato and Genma exchanged tired looks and followed him over.
"But the rain is still going," Naruto offered uneasily. "I thought that as long as it was being produced, you would sense that chakra. Does it just happen to be raining?"
"No," Karin said tersely. "Well, maybe. It could be natural rain, although I doubt it. I was sensing chakra in it before because it was actively being used to track. But it would take an extraordinarily skilled user to infuse water with her chakra, turn it into rain, and then maintain the connection even as the rain fell for hundreds of miles in each direction. That's why it was so shocking that the rain has been tinted with the same chakra for days. This… has no chakra in it. A skilled user could be infusing water with their chakra and saturating the atmosphere until it rained by taking advantage of natural processes to compensate for not being… you know," Karin shrugged as if struggling for words.
"Idiotically powerful and wasteful?" Naruto offered.
His cousin nodded. "I was looking for a more technical description, but that'll work, I guess."
"Have you sensed anyone moving around?" Kakashi prodded.
Karin shook her head. "No, but I can't sense to the center of the country, where they'd be," she offered sheepishly, pushing her fingers together.
"Neither can I; so let's call it even," Kakashi muttered, ruffling his hair. He heaved a sigh and looked up. "Two hypotheses occur. One, the person who was maintaining the jutsu before is too weary to carry on, and is having a subordinate attempt to mimic the effect to keep us at bay. Or two, that person left," he finished darkly.
There was an uneasy silence while the two teams chewed that over.
After a moment, Genma was the one to react. "I suppose we should contact the other teams, captain," he pointed out, shoving his hands in his pockets. "This is the first time that the situation has changed since we've been here."
"Other than the Mist teams going home?" Naruto muttered, biting on his lower lip. No one had explained that yet, but something must have happened.
"Well, there are still plenty of Konoha, Kumo, and Suna teams," Kakashi sighed. "Sasuke, would you please summon Katsuya-sama and ask her to pass a message to Tsunade-sama? Genma, run a message to the eastern camp. I'll go to the western camp. Tenzo, you're in charge of the kids until I get back."
"Yes, sir!" Yamato acknowledged, straightening a bit.
He had been trusted with many lives, but those were usually ANBU level shinobi. Karin and Sasuke were Chuunin, and technically Naruto was still a genin. Still, the mission to make sure nothing happened in the hour or so that he was the only ANBU level shinobi around shouldn't be too difficult.
Yamato nearly reevaluated that assessment when Sasuke dismissed Katsuya and all three of the teenagers present exchanged completely innocuous, innocent looks.
He shuffled backwards, somehow uncomfortable with the situation but not able to verbalize what was wrong. There was a distinct sense of danger in the air. Yamato cast his senses out in all directions, desperately trying to pinpoint what was wrong. Was that- did light just glint ominously off of Karin's eyes? Warily, he examined the teenagers.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Cataloguing your weaknesses," Sasuke replied honestly. "I think that the three of us together could take you."
Naruto heaved a dramatic sigh, even as Yamato blanched. The blond scratched his head. "And that would leave the three of us wandering alone into enemy territory to confront Akatsuki," he mused.
From their swift coordination, it was clear that this wasn't the first time the teens had thought about this topic. Oddly, he felt a little insulted that they obviously thought he was the weak link. He was probably stronger than Genma. Just because he didn't push his weight around… well, it didn't mean anything, that was all.
"Don't worry," Karin said lightly, digging her toe into the mud. "We won't be alone, per se. We have the advantage of numbers. My summons found the other teams days ago. As soon as I get a few miles into Ame and can sense Akatsuki, I can start telling people where to go."
Naruto snickered, though Yamato was too stiff to get what was funny about that.
"It almost seems like it would be wiser for you to just give in and escort us," Karin added, blinking red eyes up at him. Her voice was almost saccharine sweet.
Yamato swallowed. His mouth was dry. Had it been dry a moment ago?
'They might be right. I don't know that I can defeat all three of them without hurting them. And if they fight me, all of us will be weakened. And if they are so determined to go into Ame, they can't afford to be vulnerable.'
"Of course, would it be more embarrassing to lose control of your charges or to defer to them?" Sasuke pretended to wonder aloud. "Either way, Kakashi is going to be very disappointed in you, Yamato." He tsked and shook his head pityingly. The unkind little smile on his face conveyed a different message.
A shiver went up Yamato's spine, and he swallowed uneasily. "You wouldn't," he tried to sound confident.
He didn't care about being embarrassed. But he would be failing in his assigned duty either way. It was more important to try to keep the ungrateful brats safe than it was to insist on keeping them in place. If he tried and failed to keep them from leaving, they would be nearly defenseless.
Identical catlike smiles crawled across all three faces in front of him. Inanely, he wondered if the Uchiha were related to the Uzumaki in some way, because there was a definite similarity there.
They would.
He took a deep breath and steeled himself. "I can't let you three go into Ame. We were posted here for a reason."
The teenagers could have at least pretended to feel a little trepidation. Sasuke gave a deep sigh and cocked a hip. "That's not the smart reaction," he said levelly, "But it's the one I can respect you for."
"We're still going to beat you up!" Naruto chirped, sliding his feet apart and taking an athletic stance.
Yamato clapped his hands together with enough force to jar the muscles in his elbows, already flooding his fingers with chakra. The green spark lit up instantly. He transformed it into raw material for his ninjutsu and sent an enormous shoot of barkless wood spiraling rapidly at Karin, who stood in between her taller peers. Sasuke leapt in front of her and back-handed the wood course.
Perfect. Yamato repressed a smile at that instant. If he had tried to send such an obviously curved branch with dozens of sprouted limbs ready to be grown around them, they would have dodged. But they didn't, and none of them were looking at the wood. They really didn't expect much out of him, did they?
The long branch hit the ground, scraping a long line in the dirt. Twenty-four branches were already swelling and bursting out in an arc that curved over the three teens. He broke his connection to it and dashed forward.
Kids were so arrogant. They were powerful, but they weren't fast enough to play with S class opponents. He had been right to stop them. Sasuke's eyes were red and wide in a way that proved he saw what was going on, although he couldn't react to it in time. Naruto at the back had no chance to push his way forward to escape the cage that was closing around his back. Sasuke's muscles tensed—he saw the trap, and he was the only one with a chance to push his way out, since he'd blocked off Karin.
Which was why Yamato met him as he leapt forward, Karin jerking into motion behind Sasuke. The older man felt a bit of grim amusement when he kicked Sasuke in the ribs, abruptly halting his forward motion and sending him tumbling back into Karin as the cage closed.
Yamato kicked off of the outside of the wooden cage and flipped backwards, landing catlike. He grinned at the cranky and trapped teens. "That cage can hold a bijuu," he pointed out. "So don't bother-"
Crack.
The grin slid off his face. "Seriously, stop." He scowled at Sasuke, whose fist was still knuckle deep in wood. "You can't-"
Crack crack.
"Or just ignore me," Yamato mumbled, locking his fingers behind his head and turning around to hide the put-out look on his face. He whirled around again at the sound of a sickening crunch. "Oh for kami's sake," he snapped, before he registered the dumb-founded look on Sasuke's face.
"Cool," Naruto breathed.
'It is pretty cool,' Yamato thought hysterically, in the instant before the coils of glowing chains leaking out of Karin's back shattered his prison like it had been constructed from paste and toothpicks. They were a minty green he had thought only belonged to medical chakra. More importantly, they were –
"Enormous," Sasuke noted, sounding genuinely impressed. Splinters fell for a good twenty feet in every direction. They'd barely settled when Karin blinked.
"Huh." She put a hand to her hip and twisted to see the point where the chains emerged from the base of her spine. "That's interesting. I just wanted to be able to break the prison." Her lips pursed contemplatively, but the expression failed to disguise the glee at just how much destruction she'd caused.
"Those are a lot better than Aiko's," Naruto pointed out, reaching to catch a bit of debris and roll it thoughtfully between his fingers.
"Not better, different," Sasuke disagreed. "Congratulations on activating your bloodline, Karin, but I wouldn't try to use them the way Aiko does. Unless you want to pulp whoever you're trying to restrain, in any case."
Yamato silently disagreed. They were a good four times thicker than Aiko's chains, and considerably longer. They were also originating from a much lower point on the user's back. Karin didn't seem to be able to maneuver them by wrapping them around her arms like Aiko did- did that make them less precise, or just different?
Either way… That meant he couldn't keep them locked up, and the only way he could keep them in place would be to physically beat them all into unconsciousness. Yamato slumped. He couldn't do that, not if they had any teamwork at all. And he already knew that Naruto and Sasuke had acceptable teamwork.
Naruto snickered. "Ne, that makes me the only one without a bloodline limit," he playfully whined while Karin played around with her new toy. Sasuke elbowed him absentmindedly before picking his way out of the debris field.
"Well, captain," Sasuke breathed sarcastically. Yamato momentarily wished for a chance to slap the smirk off his face. "What are you going to do now?"
What indeed.
Meekly, he followed the teenagers into Ame, intentionally leaving an obvious trail for Kakashi and Genma to follow. He hated his life sometimes.