Chapter 95.3- One Thousand Hands

And so he continued his investigation. He moved his eye from street to street, and when he reached the hospital, it took a large amount of willpower for him to continue. In the sand outside the hospital, they lay in their dozens, each one sick as the last. He went inside, finding that even the medical shinobi were no exception. They laid at their desks, coughing and moaning just as surely as their compatriots laid on the ground outside. This was some kind of attack, but not a kind of attack that Bunpuku had ever seen before. Looking closer, there was a mark on the necks of all those who suffered. A seal.

“A cursed seal, hehehe” Shukaku’s voice echoed.

“You mean the kind of cursed seal that you are the master of?”

“I can deal with that thing no problem” Shukaku boasted, but Bunpuku could see the angle clear as day. He wanted out of the teapot. Just as surely as Bunpuku wanted to help those who moaned in pain even now.

“You will not deceive me, Shukaku” He said.

“Okie dokie” And the Tanuki was gone from his mind, off amusing himself with something else. It was only a matter of time until Bunpuku faded. Shukaku must have known that because he did not take back the chakra he had given Bunpuku as he usually did when he retreated. And so Bunpuku continued to watch, torn between the choice of what was right and what was easy.

In the end, it was not his choice to make. Not as he watched the little boy fall off the cot in the hospital as he tried to get a drink of water. There was no choice. Shukaku even at his worst could not take so many lives. And never so cruelly.

“Shukaku” He called into the recess of his mind.

“Something to tell me, Bunpuku-chan”

“I will release us from this kettle, but you must make a promise, my friend.”

“Shukaku never breaks promises, Bunpuku-chan.”

“Yes, yes I know, Shukaku. So I will have your word that you will help and that you will be on your best behavior when we leave here” he said.

“Shukaku swears. Shukaku just wants to see the sun” The Tanuki said.

Bunpuku was far from convinced about his friend’s earnestness, but what else could he do about it? He reached out with his own chakra, not that of the tailed beast because the teapot would reject that outright. He reached the seal that held them and then exerted his influence in the exact same pattern as Shamon had taught him all those years ago.