Chapter 18.3- One Thousand Hands

“Move now” I told my team and we jumped straight through the wall and at our opponents. Shika’s shadow reached out for both of them in the scuffle, and I watched as they both smoothly danced away from it while also edging out of the way of both Uzume and I. Toshiro’s attempt to ensnare them in genjutsu clearly failed, and he was forced to dive at the Mayor to protect him from the shuriken that had been tossed at him. In a second, the entire room had exploded in chaos. I watched as Toshiro bent over the Mayor for a few seconds or so before standing up and shaking his head.

I looked at the body and grit my teeth at seeing the shurinken that was stabbed right into his carotid artery. Replaying the memory of our invasion, I noted that another shurinken had been in the shadow of the first one that had been tossed. Toshiro’s dive at the Mayor had placed them right in front of the blade and the Mayor had been the one to take the brunt of the attack. It was Pure bad luck. And that was made the situation so annoying to me. Complete randomness. That Toshiro would have hit him at that angle and knocked him right into the path of the shurinken and that the shurinken would have hit him right at that spot was the kind of situation that absolutely no one could have foreseen or planned. Unlucky. Just unlucky.

“Okay, who the fucjk are you and what you do you want?” I questioned first, not feeling flush with patience.

“And who are you to question us, Konoha-nin?” The man that wielded the thunderswords. I bristled further at his words, until the woman placed a hand on her partner’s arm and stepped to the forefront. Now that things weren’t moving so quickly and I wasn’t seeing her through a wall, I could appreciate her beauty for real. She had pale skin, and high cheekbones, aroistocratic looks that would not have been odd to see among the Hyuga. Her black hair, instead of falling straight down like it did with most of my clan, fell down her face in curved rivets that framed her face and grounded her beauty for lack of a better word. It made it clear that this wasn’t someone from a dream- this was a human. A beautiful human. But still a human. And that made her even more beautiful to me.

“Calm down, Mako. I am sure the lovely Konoha chunin were just curious as to what was going on. We might have been intruding on their mission, after all.” She said, pulling his arm down and seemingly pacifying him for the time being. That alone marked her as the authority figure in his group to my eyes.

“Hello Konoha Chunin-san. I am Yuki Asami, Jounin of Kirigakure, and this is my partner, Hohojirozame.”

“Huh?” my mouth moved before I could think and she chuckled while her partner made to step forward.

“Hohojirozame. It’s a simple enough name if you break it down in bits. Hoho. Jiro…”

“Enough of that, we understand. Move on and start answering the questions” Uzume did not look pleased with the whole situation, and was shooting me a look of irritation for some reason.

“Yeah, we found out that this Mayor was working with the Land of Hot Water and the Hidden Steam Village to ship children for use in their academy. Since the shipping was taking place through waters that we controlled, the Mizukage wanted to get the full story and that was what led him to sending us down here” She explained. I nodded at her words. Definitely her words. Not the way her hair moved with her face when she spoke. And definitely not the way I could smell her perfume intruding in my nose.

“But that’s beside the point. The Mayor is dead, and we have the information we needed. Can we get your names and get going”

“As if,” Uzume was instant.

“What information did you need?” Shika probed.

“Just some basic things like where the children are being held and who he hands them over to. Apparently, there is a hidden steam chunin somewhere here that should be picking up the kids at a cave near the beach head. We’ll be moving to intercept him and return those poor children to their families.” She said.

“Pretty certain that the Hidden Steam chunin in question is dead and gone. We ran into him on our way here” I said.

“Oh lovely, then. We can move to save the kids and leave that as that” She said before turning to leave.

“Hold on. Let’s come with you” I said.

“Come with us?” She sounded hesitant.

“I’d love to cooperate with some konoha shinobi, but this isn’t even the friendliest of circumstances, we don’t know your names, and don’t you have a mission to get to” She replied, while her partner grunted by her side.

“Our mission was to find the kids and return them, so we wouldn’t be going out of the way here” I said to her, ignoring the way Uzume looked like she wanted to stab me in the skull.

“As for names, I am Hyuga Jinpachi, and these are my teammates Kurosaki Ichigo, Inoeu Orihime, and Kuchiki Rukia” I said, giving the fake names with a smooth smile on my face. None of my teammates reacted, as the need to avoid giving our names out was something that had been impressed even more thoroughly upon us on the eve of this mission. Iwa had put a bounty out for my head, and there were people itching to collect.

“Alright then. You’ve convinced me. Let’s get going” She said.

“How do you know the way?” I asked after we stepped out of the building and began to move west.

“I’ve come on a mission or two her before. Kiri has a very good relationship with the Land of Waves” She replied.

A/N; Progress abounds