Sluice

[Naitome]

---

Mizu No Kuni. Again.

A gray bubble of wrinkles, mist-thick and agitated, pushed out by the spread of patchwork islands. Count the bloated bodies that give edge to the sunken veldt, hate how the mazes of dull marsh pretending to be separate rock masses are named after lost ships or folktales. Remember this place, this conundrum. This land that is somehow also water. It is never considered to be a graveyard until it is too late.

Near the rough coast of Harmony Gambler - a shantytown of gimcrack sheds and stray animals - people sell and buy and barter anything. They trade murder for cheese and scraps of colored paper, right here, where he stood, where the countryside faded to become a drowning dirt knot dotted with hovels. As Naitome rambled off a falsetto cluster of nonsensical questions and merchant slang, he was met by the mumbling reply of those who would slit his throat for having something of value, or for having nothing at all.

There is a war happening, they'd heard. They didn't care who won.

He moved through their market place like an excited tourist, pointing at exotic hanging meat or birds with equal fervor. How much? he asked squealing, for an edible child's toy. It was shaped more or less like a little girl, carved from onion and wearing a painted dress of cinnamon and honey. It's owner shook it, humming, set its candied shoes on his own arm. You see? How the legs move? Is like walking. Good toy! Not many like it. For you? Cheap price. Tiny piece of your liver. Cut cut, gone, almost no pain. Is deal, yes? The Jonin shook his head from side to side, frowning. He'd already named all the pieces of his liver. They were like family now. He moved on.

Night swallowed day; with tree-teeth and swamp-teeth, and fog. There were no inns or taverns close by; those who drank did so wherever they pleased and those who did not live along this sliver of mercantile treachery left as soon as they could. In order to sleep, Naitome would be forced to seek high ground, above the beasts cornering future food in the rot miasma. Enveloped in a pitch of stale sunless hours, restless and exhausted at the same time. He settled atop an old iron watchtower, hidden by a canopy of ribbed brown leaves, home to an abandoned nest smeared with rust. He lay flat, arms stiffly at his side, then spasmed his body in every direction, before kicking his feet at the criss-crossed shell of twigs surrounding him. He began to hum a tune he'd heard from a sharkborn sailor, then stopped as abruptly as he'd started, spit, laughed, searched frantically to follow where his spit had gone.

He stared at a small fraction of the face of his home's moonlit reflection bend around the moisture wrapping the world. He shouted at animals when they sounded off in fear or hunger, shouted louder when they grew silent, cursing the empty lull.

He did not sleep, but he dreamt.

[Naitome]

---

Years ago. The Village Hidden In The Mist is prosperous. There are no hints at the war to come amongst the flourishing shinobi that make up its legion. It's deadly rank and file.

Naitome has only just been made Jonin, is a child heading children towards horror. He does not yet carry the scythe of his adoptive clan, only a simple katana that braces his back against the magatama adorned kimono flowing a ghost outline in the damp. The council convened just for him, he's been told, not only in response to being promoted despite his youth, but to determine whether or not he is fit to lead. They do not think him responsible enough for his own life to be charged with the care of others. This is his chance. Sifting through rocks in the dripping fecund crag of outer Mizu.

They hunt traitors. Their mission is going poorly.

Asuka Naguki - 13 year old Genin who'd trained with Naitome since his days at the academy and understood most of the tangential outbursts that marked him as disturbed. She was the teams best Taijutsu-user, but lacked any blood-born advantage. She would be responsible for drawing the attention of a large group of dissidents, the fancy word they'd recently learned meant former shinobi, while the rest of the team slipped into their Water Country headquarters through a path provided by

Jinkori Kuroshiro - beautiful 16 year old Chunin, product of a poor family of what Naitome would only call plantlings. A scatter-brained user of the near-mythical Wood Release, the dual-colored girl had considerable skill in all areas, but truly specialized in the Medical Arts. Though highly intelligent, that very same acumen seemed to rob her of focus, and her emotional state was monitored nearly as closely as Naitome's own. She could get them in and out (hopefully) without opposition, and take care of any wounds sustained within.

The last member of their team had not yet arrived. He was meant to secure their passage through the compound, help them find their way to a stockpile of carefully pilfered items kept in an 'impenetrable vault' for safety. Naitome paced with a look of minor agitation, that became a look of ecstasy, then twitched into whispered grumbles a few seconds later. He turned around in a circle, pantomimed dizziness. Strode before Asuka and Jinkori as they waited for their final comrade.

"Do the rest of you...

...see the Panda?"

He asked seriously, noting their location a few hundred meters from the betrayer's HQ.

Where was this guy?

[EITO]

---

Huff, huff, huff.

Pitter patters of young feet splatted against the wet terrain of out Mizu no Kuni, the hurried breaths he huffed brought on by haste, not exhaustion. Merely 11 years old, young Hyuuga Eito had been selected to go on a mission of exceptional importance, tasked not only with acting as the scouting force of the unit, but also as a boy considered a Taijutsu savant, especially for his age. Spotting his comrades, the young man slid against the wet terrain beneath him, dragging his heels through the moist ground. Screeching to a halt, he immediately bowed before verbalizing his apology. "Naitome-sensei, Asuka-san, Jinkori-san, please forgive my absence." Offering apologies to each one of his team members, the young man finally settled, his hands confirming that he was carrying his equipment and ninjato.

"Eito-kun, you should take your role more seriously." Blurted Asuka, shaking her head for emphasis.

"I take it seriously Asuka-san, I simply had--"

"Tsst." Asuka closed her hand at Eito, silencing him. Only introduced recently, the two had already built a rapport, both of them considered impeccable Taijutsu practitioners.

However, Eito wasn't brought along purely for his ability to wield his families unique fighting style, instead his primary use was in his eyes, which filled with life as he approached Naitome, the head of the squad. "Naitome-sensei, what's the plan?" He asked as he turned his refined sight to the compound ahead of them, the small kunai that made its way to his hand etching a simplified diagram of the building ahead of them into the malleable ground beneath them between each activation of his enhanced sight. Etching an X for each enemy, a O for areas of importance and a simplified door for entrances, Eito simply turned to his squad, allowing them to get a better look at the diagram.

-- byakugan active, enhanced sight active

[Naitome]

---

Here at last! Naitome looked Eito over with a glare that brightened in timing with the young man's activated dojutsu. He and Asuka's playful chastising did not go unnoticed, but as long as they weren't smushing against each other in the dark (he made a face somewhere between 'have to vomit' and 'let loose the invisible crab from its esophageal prison') he could reserve his comments.


The Jonin stuck out his tongue and closed his eyes, rotating his neck then blinking in Asuka's direction, causing her to shush their latecomer. The team's fallback Taijutsu offensive would have to be sustained by the Hyuuga, and as the boy drew a complicated diagram in the dirt, Naitome pushed a circle into the soil around it with the the tip of his boots. He placed two rocks near the top of the circle like ears, then waved his hands at the entire thing, as if revealing a magic trick.

"Panda!"

He barked, raising his hands to cover his own mouth suddenly, forcing the sound back.

"...Panda."

He whispered, narrowed eyes cinched to bore holes through Eito's chin.

<<Naitome-sensei, what's the plan?>>

"We are far from its eucalyptus buffet, but it waits, gorges on shiny things. This..."

His voice a wavering explosion of sound, the unnerving intonation of madness. He pointed at a box that represented the front entrance.

"...is the way most people come to visit Mr. Panda. But; we need it's shiny. So Asuka waves her hands screaming and running this way."

Naitome rose suddenly, screamed at the top of his lungs, and ran in a circle waving his arms, before collapsing into a pile once more before the diagram, finger tracing squiggles towards a dug in 'O'.

"But Jinkori-plantling can get us-"

He patted himself, then Eito on the top of the head.

"-under here, where Lord Panda's nose can't sniffle sniffle."

He sniffed, to explain.

"But his Panda-ness did a bad thing with a lady, had spawn. Children. Little baby panda! So cute!"

He put his head into his hands and stared lovingly at the diagonal slashes representing stairs.

"We step on their heads! You-"

He tapped Eito again, then made his fingers walk up a series of intertwined lines (chambers) in a way it would be impossible for them to actually mimic, before resting on the largest 'O'.

"-bring us to Sir Panda's leafy sparkling meals here, so we can scoot out to get Asuka."

He slid his hand, palm down, back towards the main entrance, utterly destroying most of the diagram.

"Then we run away! No questions? Dreadful. Charge!"

Naitome turned and ran into a tree.

"Panda's henchmen!"

He roared, before slapping at the water-logged bark with both hands frantically.

[Naitome]

---

-- Somewhere else.

He roared, before slapping at the water-logged bark with both hands frantically.

"Arrrrrggghhhhhh--"

"ENOUGH."

Sonzairyuu cooed aggressively, watching both boys through the rotating pinwheel of those eyes. AU-2 landed just ahead of his 'brother', balancing the chakra beneath his feet to not sink below the surging river, and throwing up a brief splash of foam. AU-3 noticed that Sonzairyuu, face a mask of hardened age, had drawn his own thin blade, a sign that punishment was soon to come. He hit AU-2 on the shoulder, sending the other boy a few inches backwards, before suddenly feeling a foot dig its way into his stomach. It was not like slow motion, it was like fast motion, like the planet jumped and sent its inhabitants flailing, free. AU-3 could not control his own body, went limp, sick with terror. He would always remember this moment, the image. A silver glinting pressed to his throat, Sonzairyuu at its hilt, AU-2 like his living mirror, full of sinister gazes passing between the interlocked 'family'.

"AU-3, ARE YOU INCAPABLE OF WALKING UP THE TREE? ARE YOU USELESS TO US?"

Sonzairyuu demanded, dull threat like glass failing to conceal the hatred in his expression.

"I'm not...slush, trees. Walk like. Like you don't walk up trees or as slu--"

AU-3 replied, mouthing "Mr. Knife" and aiming his eyes away from Sonzairyuu's own, down towards the weapon cutting wispy red below his jaw.

"VILE USELESS NONSENSE."

Sonzairyuu spat, pity-adjacent, craning sideways to direct his next words towards AU-2 instead.

"WALKING ON WATER IS NOT DIFFICULT, THAT IS WHY YOU CAN DO IT, AU-2. YOU REACHED FURTHER THAN AU-3, BUT DO YOU SEE HIM? IS HE USELESS? IS HE A FOOLISH INCOMPETENT NOTHINGNESS THAT MUST BE IGNORED, OR IS HE A SYMBOL OF YOUR WEAKNESS? ARE YOU THE SAME, AU-2?"

"We are the same."
"We are the same."

Both boys answered stiffly.

"AU-2, AU-3.

ARE YOU USELESS?"

"We are useless until the Knife Gate has been opened."
"We are useless until the Knife Gate has been opened."

Both boys answered simultaneously, AU-3 coughing as the blade, which had not moved except slightly inwards, made breathing its own injury. Sonzairyuu looked back down at AU-3, relaxed his grasp just enough to inspire a new swell of fear at the small mercy.

"SO YOU WILL CLIMB THE TREE. IF YOU CANNOT COMPLETE THAT TASK, THEN YOU CANNOT OPEN THE KNIFE GATE , AU-3. IF YOU CANNOT OPEN THE KNIFE GATE, THEN YOU ARE USELESS, AU-3. AND IF YOU ARE USELESS, THEN WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU?"

"We will die, like AU-1."
"We will die, like AU-1."

The boys their own rigid choir, speaking in perfect sync. They'd said these exact words many times before.

Sonzairyuu, gestured towards the tree the boys were meant to climb, easing off of AU-3 completely, and sheathing his blade. The boys stared at the thick roots reaching into swollen green clumps, up at the poison covered nails Sonzairyuu had hammered into its trunk to make the climbing more difficult, at the hands and heads and stinking viscera stapled with kunai at odd intervals leading to its top, reminders of those who'd failed to learn from their master.

"AGAIN!"

He screeched at them impatiently, throwing a shard of metal at their heads.

"At least Akuharu doesn't have to do this."

AU-3 whispered to the clone at his side as they ran, forcing spurts of chakra awake as they dodged Sonzairyuu's tantrum.

"Don't call him that. We don't have names. He's AU-1. He was. And now..."

AU-2 whispered back, trailed off, caught himself.

"...now he doesn't matter at all."

AU-2 leaped gracefully from the rivers edge to the base of the tree, ignoring the nail that punched a new hole through his tabi. He reached down for AU-3's hand, prepared to throw him near a cluster of gnarled branches, hoping their chakra would hold hold them balanced along the curving. Airborne, AU-3 tumbled in free-rise, hand swiping a new wave of projectiles out of his face, tracking their origin to Sonzairyuu. We hate him. His own thoughts, probably. His right ankle slammed down atop a group of braided together knuckles, was skewered by a nail, he slipped--

Without knowing how, a hand grabbed his shoulders and spun him around.

[Naitome]

---

Without knowing how, a hand grabbed his shoulders and spun him around.

<<"Naitome-sensei?">>

It was just his name, spoken in Asuka's light alto, but it was a question too. The Genin's hands clutched Naitome tightly, genuine concern beneath a show of half-hearted aggression, a smattering of niceties. He shook his head free of the intrusive memories, was unsure if they were real or not. He still faced the tree, and pivoting to face his team took a last cursory peak at the smeared diagram.

<<"Are you okay? You were hitting the tree, then you just stopped. It was like you zoned out. What...what did you see.">>

Naitome blinked several times. Cleared his throat. Concentrated.

"Nothing. We have to go."

Asuka pulled back, startled by his sudden clarity. They all did, for the same reason.

"Stop gawking. Have to move. Long way to go still."

He choked out, before adding

"It hurts. This. Being like you. Playing normal. Too much noise."

Naitome said in a lowered tone, the corners of his mouth twitching. He removed Asuka's hands from his body and pushed away, the pained expression he'd just worn dissolving into a demented cheerfulness. He pointed theatrically at Jinkori.

"How close to Panda-dono do we need to be before you can mush us into his lair, plantling?"

He asked her, biting the knuckles on his pinky to scratch an itch.

<<"Uh. Well. We should. Keep it close. Maybe? Not too close. Not close enough. To be spotted. But how. Do we know how close. Is too close. Close is. A weird word. Like clothes. I wish. I had nicer clothes. Well. The clothes aren't really nice. Not like. They could be mean. But that's also. A word for numbers. Mean. I mean...">>

Jinkori started, eyes wandering in every direction but the one they needed to travel. Asuka lashed out, hit Jinkori in the head, pulled Eito close. She hit him too for good measure.

<<"Jinkori-chan, Eito-kun. Get it together.">>

Asuka scolded, before pushing them away from the diagram's messy etching engraving the mound. Naitome followed in step, skipping nonchalantly or hiding frantically behind every other copse of awkward flora, fleeing hallucinatory enemies. The few hundred meters between themselves and the dissidents became a few dozen, and as they silently crept through bog and briar, the unforgiving flux of liquid-heavy air separated to reveal a mostly featureless squat building. Jinkori began to fidget, Asuka and Eito argued over how best to distract the frumpy-looking guards trotting zig-zags in the dust crowding the front entrance.

<<"It would be different if you were a Hyuuga, Asuka-san, but what you're suggesting is suicide. You can't just...">>

Eito began, as Asuka cut him off, closing her fist decisively.

<<"Tsst! I'm doing this, and that's that!">>

She knocked the young Genin over the head twice in rapid succession.

<<"Naitome. Are we. Ready?">>

Jinkori asked, side-stepping past the antics of her fellow Genin. The way she said it was quite similar to are YOU ready?

"Never!"

Naitome exclaimed, before nodding and waving at the air behind them. He scanned the surroundings before clearing his throat in Eito's direction. The boy looked at him.

Naitome cleared his throat again, louder.

Eito stared back, not understanding.

<<"Your eyes, Eito-kun.">>

Asuke said matter-of-factly. Bulging veins riddled the young Hyuuga's forehead a second after, and once some meaningful swiveling assured them all that their presence was still unnoticed, Naitome grinned and threw a crumpled chewing gum wrapper at Jinkori. Time for their mission to truly start!

[☆ F ☆]

Naitome: +40 EXP
Eito: +5 EXP