Silent Night

Special Aiko Halloween story, part one.

Everyone gasped at the same time. Aiko stopped mid stride to put her hand on her chest, disbelieving the sudden change.

“I cannot feel my chakra,” Gaara said numbly. He turned in a slow circle, as if it might be behind him. “What is this?”

Karin was fighting for air, eyes wide behind her glasses. “I can’t see,” she said, bewildered. “It’s- I can see… is this how you see?” She grabbed at Aiko’s sleeve and clung on.

Aiko let her, despite her instincts barking for her to shake off any restriction. Everything was so quiet now, and she wasn’t getting all the sensory input that she expected. Unsure, she glanced back at Utakata. He was dashing to her side, running to catch up. He had been less than 20 feet away but she couldn’t smell his lotion anymore, or even his shampo.

Her stomach roiled. “Enemy action?” She asked quietly. “My best guess. Karin, Gaara, get to the closest shelter.” Before they could protest she added, “I want you to protect it. Do you have steel?”

Karin put a hand to her hair and pulled out a fine needle that glinted in the fading sunlight of a cold October day. “I have senbon.”

“I do not.” Gaara hunched in on himself. “I…”

Utakata pulled out a kunai and flipped it to hand over. “I trust you are proficient.”

Gaara took it reluctantly. “I am… adequately trained.” He looked unmoored and unsteady.

‘He looks more out of place than usual,’ Aiko thought, suddenly stuck by his desert tans and red in the middle of an island. Something about it left her feeling very unsettled. ‘Maybe I should keep them with me.’

She bit her lip and didn’t countermand her own order. They weren’t just children, they were soldiers. She took a deep breath and looked around the street. The civilians hadn’t seemed to notice anything was amiss, but every shinobi in sight was looking around. “May I have your attention?” She said, projecting her voice. “All civilians please proceed to designated shelters.”

The vast majority of the civilians were still walking and talking, ordering street food or cracking open a drink.

She… she couldn’t project her voice very far without chakra use. She glanced up at Utakata, a little surprised by her own inability. His black eyes met hers and then flashed away.

“Evac!” He called, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Evac!”

Someone else took up the call and it grew until it was ringing through the streets. Aiko nodded a goodbye to Karin and Gaara and then set off at a sprint for the tower. Any intelligence reports would come in there.

It took an unnervingly long time to hear anything at all. Communication was slow without chakra. Aiko found herself thinking about Gai. He wouldn’t be at all inconvenienced.

‘Wait, is Konoha affected? What’s the radius of this?’

She fidgeted, flipping a senbon between her fingers rapidly. That was about when a Chuunin runner relayed that the phenomenon was covering the entire main island.

“Just the main island?” Aiko asked. She stopped pacing.

The chuunin was ramrod stiff. “I do not know, Mizukagesama. Without chakra, we cannot verify the status of the other islands.”

It took her a moment to understand. No chakra meant no water walking, meant no way to make the air bubbles to access the underwater paths. There were some boats, yes, but they didn’t belong to her. The harbor had several fishing vessels and trade ships.

Aiko got to her feet. “Do we have wartime powers?” She asked Nishikawa.

His expression didn’t change. “Pardon?”

She blinked at him. “To commandeer one of the ships in the harbor,” she explained. “I want to know how far this extends. It could be an attack on the capital, or action against the whole nation. I’d like to know what we’re dealing with.”

“You are the Mizukage,” Nishikawa said. A crack appeared in his cool, when he didn’t quite manage to hide confusion. “If you wish to take the ship then you may.”

Aiko felt her brow furrowed. That was really cavalier. Konoha was definitely stricter than that.

‘Perhaps Konoha has well-established protocols because they are invaded annually,’ Sanbi said practically.

Ouch. But point taken.

Aiko squashed down any guilt and had two ships commandeered. They went off with skeleton crews of shinobi and civilian volunteers who knew about sailing.

“It should just take a couple of hours,” she said to herself, looking out the window. The ships had left an hour ago already. “They’re only going to the closest island on either side.”

She bit her lip. The sun was fully down now, kissing the horizon goodbye one last time. There was still no sign of motivation or overt enemy action. Only suffocating stillness and the lingering fear that they were vulnerable.

“Mizukage sama, does your fuinjutsu still work?” Nishikawa asked.

Utakata made a sudden sound of comprehension. “Ah- that could be it.”

She blinked at them and drew a hand across the air. Nothing sparked. “No, I…” she trailed off, remembering that she didn’t have to write with only chakra. She went back to her desk and pulled out a pen and a piece of scrap paper. She scribbled out a containment seal and tested it with a finger.

“Oh.” She touched it again. “It’s very faint. But it has some effect. I think…” she rolled up her sleeve and pinched open a wound near her elbow. She let it drip into her empty coffee cup.

“Oh,” Utakata said, disgusted. “Aiko.” He crossed the office floor to her with brisk steps. “Let me.”

Without looking she held her left arm out at a better angle so that he could take it. She didn’t pay attention to how he wrapped it, though she did notice that he carefully folded her sleeve up and his warm hands lingered on her upper arm. She used the blood to draw a new seal and tested it a little less cavalierly.

“Ah! She pulled her hand back quickly, shaking it. “Yes, that has a lot more bite to it. So, yes, that works… access to chakra is cut off, but I can still use it this way.”

She felt her gaze soften as she thought.

This didn’t seem like… well, it was a pretty big oversight to a technique. If she was going to attack and wanted to prevent someone from fighting back, she would also curtail seal use. On the other hand, fuinjutsu was a rare and dying skill. Maybe the person who had created this affect thought it wasn’t worth accounting for.

“Maybe we are dealing with someone who uses fuinjutsu,” Aiko mused. She leaned against Utakata, who was conveniently near enough to function as a wall. “That would be an advantage that could overcome numbers. If our people are unable to use chakra against others fighting with their main skillset…”

“Whoever did this spent a lot of preparation,” Mei said. It was the first time that she had spoken. “I have heard nothing through intelligence that could be connected to this. And yet they must have formed a barrier around the full area covered. A barrier around an island nation, that prevents them from using chakra as well as us. Even with fuinjutsu, they cannot water walk. So how do they plan to reach us? Does this mean they’re already on the island?”

Aiko frowned. She lifted her hand in signal. The head of her guard knelt before her. “I want another check,” she said. “Search the capital. Buildings, sewers, forests- all of it. If someone is here I want to know about it.”

“Mizukage sama,” she muttered, bowing low enough to press her forehead on the floor. And then the special agent was gone.

They had a tense cup of coffee, at least one of which had an unpleasant aftertaste as Aiko possessively drank her own blood to keep it from going down the drain or into unknown hands. They waited another hour. And then a runner informed them that the first ship had returned.

“Already?” Mei stood with a frown. “It’s too soon. Why- are they unable to navigate? Did they encounter the enemy?”

“This ship could have been taken,” Utakata murmured. “We may have provided them with a way inside the zone without chakra use.”

They went to the dock. Aiko waved the others back, making sure that none of the chuunin got too close to the harbor. The ship they had sent out moved gently on the waves, dark and silent.

Something roiled in her gut.

“We sent ten on this, yes?” She confirmed under her breath.

Nishikawa agreed quietly. “And twelve on the larger ship.”

There was no sign of movement. It was fully dark now but the lights were all off.

“I don’t think our people are on there,” Aiko said. She scowled. “Utakata, with me. The rest of you wait here.”

The ship hadn’t obligingly fastened itself close enough, so she had to take it at a bit of a run and jump to clear the distance from the harbor. She landed on board in a crouch and immediately looked around.

Nothing. It was dark and still.

She straightened, feeling the hair stand up at the back of her neck. It felt like she was being watched. “Let’s go,” she murmured. With Utakata a silent shadow she checked the upper deck and then went below. There were no signs of people, no signs of a fight. If there was any enemy they were beyond her detection.

She caught the faintest hint of something in the air as she went back outside. Aiko paused midstep, face pointed up.

“Aiko?” Utakata asked quietly. She put a finger up, asking him for silence as she concentrated on following the scent she had caught. It took her over to the side of the ship. She had to squint to see anything by the reflection of the moon, but there it was. A dark gash against the wood was there. It showed where someone had lost a lot of blood as they were dragged off the ship and down into the water.

She looked into the water. For a moment she thought she saw a face looking back at her, a face like her own. Then the wave moved and the image was gone.

“Just my reflection,” she whispered. “I…” she touched Utakata for reassurance. “Let’s return now.”

“What did you see?” He asked in an undertone, hurrying across the deck.

“Blood over the side of the ship,” she said, omitting the face in the water. “At least one person was dragged in.”