I flew back to the village after interrogating my prisoner. He wore a fish mask, and after unmasking the man, Scooby-Doo style, I discovered he was a few years older than Horse. I still couldn’t get the Fish’s name, but managed to figure out that he was personally close to Horse.
Fish was part of the same border fort as Horse, which, despite the man's attempts to hide it, was the main fort that defended against the Stone Village. He was the one who discovered Horse’s talent for Earth Style jutsu and recommended the young man for ANBU. I could tell that Fish wanted to rip my throat out with his teeth when he discovered that Horse and Rooster had perished, but when I confirmed my identity, he became confused and heartbroken. I told him that it was Bull who killed them, but Fish wouldn't hear of it. He knew that Bull, Rabbit, and—I discovered the third member was Raccoon—were part of Danzo’s Root, but he rejected the idea that Danzo had ordered his teammates' deaths. Fish believed that this was a case of friendly fire.
Fish’s team was sent on a mission to gather information on whether any of the Seven Swordsmen were in the Land of Tea. Three Root ninjas conscripted them for a mission. He was told that the Sand was trying to start another ninja war by pretending that the Leaf was helping them. They were to work alongside the Mist Village ANBU to kill Pakura and any imposter Leaf ninja that they found to prevent another war from breaking out. The Sand wouldn’t want to start a war if one of their top ninjas died before it even started.
I threw Fish in stasis and made my way back to the village, thinking about what I wanted to do when I returned. The carpet had me, my obnoxiously large camera, and a stone coffin where Fish was sleeping inside. I wasn’t allowed to fly right to the Hokage’s tower anymore, as I was expected to walk through the front gates of the village like every other ninja.
It was morning when I got back, and just in time for gate traffic. Hundreds of carts were making their way into the village, and other ninja teams were starting to leave on missions of their own. The leaves were a brilliant green as the trees framed the road, providing shade to the many tired travelers. I felt almost relaxed being back, and I dismounted and then rolled up my carpet.
The coffin was strapped to my back, and the carpet was between the coffin and my head. I carried the camera in one hand and walked towards the front gate. I waved to the guards, who made a sign to acknowledge my arrival. One of the two guards went to write down that I had returned from my mission.
As I got closer, one of the merchant's horses went crazy and started bucking and whining. The commotion caused the merchant's supplies to topple, and the horse kicked another merchant's cart, causing more heavy boxes to spill their contents onto the road. The other guard, who wasn't writing my name in the logs, went to check out what was wrong.
I was naturally curious about what goods the merchants were trying to sell, and even though I knew another Leaf ninja was approaching me, I missed the fact that they had two ninja hounds with them. “Fang Over Fang!”
My head snapped to the Leaf ninja who was preparing an attack, and I looked to see who they were going after. I looked at the commotion earlier, thinking that maybe we were under attack. Still, as the Inuzuka's attack got closer, I remembered that Rooster was an Inuzuka and turned my head back to see that the Leaf ninja was targeting me.
The attack was too close to dodge, and the stone coffin on my back wasn’t strong enough to block it. Taking my scroll out, I summoned my shield and managed to activate the rotating light shield around it, but the Inuzuka technique was too strong and I was caught unawares. The blow sent me flying back, scattering my things into the sky.
Rolling in the air with the blow, I shot out a bandage to catch the coffin and bring it back to me, but a flash of lightning shot out from the trees and severed the bandage halfway. The Inuzuka stopped her attack for a moment, saw my shield, and scoffed. She was a young woman with fang tattoos on her face. Making a few hand signs, she erupted into a cloud of smoke, and a giant two-headed hound appeared where she used to be.
I looked to see where the lightning attack came from, but a pair of fangs covered my vision as a ninken that was not the giant two-headed dog nearly bit my head off. I dodged the surprise strike and was about to dodge the cyclone of claws and fangs that the giant two-headed dog had turned into when a serpent made of electricity slithered along the ground and struck me.
The electricity snaked across my body and paralyzed me. I couldn’t channel my chakra to my bandages and was barely able to lift my shield to block the incoming attack. No chakra meant no chakra-rotating light shield; I took the attack head-on and with little protection.
My body flew with the impact and slammed into the ground, causing an explosion of dust. The attack hurt. I often rely on tricks and being one step ahead of my enemies when I’m in combat. Taking a nearly direct attack from what I had to guess was a Special Jonin using one of the Inuzuka clan's signature techniques would have killed anyone else who wasn’t prepared for it.
My shield had shattered on impact, and a foot-long shard of it was sticking out of my stomach. A small part of my brain was cursing up a storm as I was going to have to reveal more cards up my sleeve, but the rest of my brain was hurting and knew I had to act now and complain later. I had to use the cover of the dust cloud I was in to my advantage if I was to hide at least some of my techniques, but the lightning user was keeping an eye out for anything I might do.
I used the Burrowing into the Ground technique and got to work.
***
Panting, Tsume wanted to undo the jutsu and return to normal, but her husband's killer was still alive. Last night, Kuromaru had burst into her room and told her that Katasuke’s name had faded from the ninken summoning contract. Running to the ANBU HQ, she slammed her fist on the doors and nearly broke them down. Danzo had opened the doors and informed her that her husband was out on a mission. He said that he couldn’t tell her where but promised to tell her more when he found out.
Katasuke was the strongest of the clan, and she was now the new clan head. Danzo had contacted her that morning and asked her to watch the main gate, saying he would tell her more about what had happened to her husband later in the day. But Danzo didn’t have to. When she was patrolling the gate, a disturbance in the line grabbed her attention. She was inside the village, scanning all the newcomers walking in, and only poked her head around the entrance to make sure there weren’t any problems when she smelled Katasuke’s blood. It only took a few seconds to pinpoint the source.
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The man was dressed like Amon of the paper lanterns. Whether it was the real Amon or not didn't matter. He killed her husband, her clan's leader, and the father of her son. She would have her vengeance. She prowled towards the man, who barely gave her a second glance. Enraged by his act of nonchalance, she struck.
The man made a fool of himself, looking around and wasting valuable time, but if her husband’s murderer wanted to die like a jester, she would oblige him. The attacks landed well. He was too confident in his disguise, and she knew that this wasn’t the real Amon.
The real Amon was always tricky to pin down in a fight. The fact that the bandage he tried to shoot out somehow failed proved he wasn’t the genuine article. The imposter wasn’t using any of his famous lanterns, had pulled out a weird shield that barely impeded her, and his carrying a coffin wasn’t like Amon at all. The man was barely even trying.
She had never seen it herself, but heard Amon would wrap people up in bandages like a mummy to transport them out of the battlefield. The coffin he was using was unusual-looking, as if it were made from a single piece of stone with a minor three-by-twelve-inch slit towards the top, intended for the person inside to breathe and see out of.
Her partner smelled somebody inside and pawed at the coffin. Its claws were sharp enough that it only took a scant few seconds to pry it open and see who was inside. Her heart nearly skipped a beat to see a Leaf ANBU lying inside while holding a strange wheel.
Katasuke’s partner jumped, and the next second, he howled in pain as a kunai struck him. Turning to see what had happened, she saw someone had thrown a kunai from the trees towards the ANBU sleeping in the coffin.
Katasuke’s ninken had a kunai sticking out of it and was twitching while still standing, and audible zapping sounds were coming off of it. Flames had appeared around its fur where the wound was, and now that she was looking around, the fake Amon had stuff with him that was now a bonfire: a rolled-up carpet and a video camera she recognized as the kind from the movies.
The impostor must either be trying to cover for himself or have a partner. Using her nose, she identified the man in the coffin as a teammate of Katasuke’s, although she couldn’t remember the man's name. The other guards were approaching, and she signaled with her tail that there was an enemy to her right.
The other ninjas who were on guard duty made their way around the civilians who, now that she noticed, seemed oddly… peaceful. At first, she remembered screaming and running, but after the Amon imposter disappeared into the dust cloud she had caused, they all got really quiet. She used her chakra to see if she was under the effect of a genjutsu, but nothing around her changed.
All the merchants and civilians were walking peacefully and orderly towards the gate as if there was nothing wrong. She couldn’t smell the fake Amon anymore, nor whoever had thrown the three kunai from before. The other guards went into the trees to search for the attacker while she kept an eye out for the imposter.
***
I failed to catch the attacker. The man with the Lightning jutsu was too fast and cautious. He only attacked a few times and then fled the moment he lost track of me. Using Earth Style was slow, and if I followed above ground, he would notice me following him, and he even burned my carpet. I only had one of those, and it would take time to make another.
I let out a sigh as I sat down on the bench with my order. Three large chocolate chip cookies and some apple juice were just what I needed after such an annoying mission. The smell of the freshly baked sweets made my newly exposed mouth water.
The Inuzuka was still in her giant two-headed dog form, a little over a hundred yards away, still moving her head one way and another. When she was in front of me, she was pretty scary, but from behind and at a distance, she reminded me of a dog chasing squirrels in my backyard. The line of people was walking nicely and orderly, ignoring the shapeshifting ninja sniffing for her prey.
I had managed to cast a genjutsu on the merchants so that they would pick up the mess they made and ignore the fighting happening around them. To them, it felt like nothing but a windy day. I thought that would reveal my location to the guards, but I suspect they all thought that maybe one of the other guards was the one who had cast the genjutsu to move the civilians away.
The guards weren’t doing anything particularly useful. Two had chased down my mysterious attacker, the Inuzuka had remained to seek me out, and one had run to the desk to make a call. I planned to finish my snack and wait for Inuzuka to be ready to talk, while keeping an eye on the ANBU agent still in his coffin to ensure he and the film roll were safe.
I had just taken a bite of my cookie when I saw Hiruzen walking my way. He sat down on the bench next to me. “Is there a reason you have transformed into one of my ANBU, Amon? Perhaps you are looking for a promotion.”
I was disguised as Fish Mask, but without the mask, while I was hiding from the Cerberus wannabe. Brown hair and plain clothes, the man was pretty average looking so I threw on a T-shirt that said ‘I’m not suspicious’.“I want Fish Mask to see a familiar face when he wakes up. I heard that it’s quite reassuring.”
“Hmm, how considerate of you. I notice combat rations have improved since my time,” Hiruzen said while taking a fresh-baked cookie from my plate.
“Hey, my blood sugar is low. I was just impaled a moment ago, and I’m recovering. Doctor's orders.”
“I heard a doctor who treats themself has a fool for a patient.” I had to sit there drinking my apple juice, listening to the Third Hokage mock me while eating my cookie. “Why is Tsume Inuzuka trying to kill you?”
“A deceased member of her clan’s blood was on me.”
Hiruzen's eyes sharpened at that. “Why?”
“Because I was standing next to him when a Root ninja killed him.”
Hiruzen let the words sink in while he watched the Inuzuka continue to sniff the ground for a clue as to where I was. “Why can’t she find you while you are this close to her?”
“I healed myself and changed my bandages. I was in a hurry to return from the mission and never cleaned myself up.”
“Not in that much of a hurry,” Hiruzen said, making a point of looking at my last remaining cookie.
I blocked his view of my cookie with my body. “I am keeping an eye on Fish Mask and the evidence I collected on my mission. I plan on presenting that to you when I make my official report.”
“Ah, yes, how is Pakura?”
“She is alive, and I have a recording of her saying she didn’t write the letter.”
“Did you manage to hit it off with her? Maybe share a meal or two with her?”
“Didn’t get the chance,” I answered, exasperated.
“Maybe if you weren’t so stingy about sharing cookies, she would have given you a chance,” he said, eating my last cookie, which he somehow managed to steal from me. We sat there, I nursing my apple juice while Hiruzen ate. “This is good, but next time, order milk.”
I glared at the Third Hokage, who was now a cookie thief, while he acted like he couldn’t tell.
“Well, this has been a nice day, and I have a meeting with someone I need to get to. Give me a brief and honest summary of your mission.”
I sat for a second to gather my thoughts. The Inuzuka was visibly getting frustrated that she couldn’t find me and was tiring out from keeping up her jutsu. “I found Pakura, saved her from, and then captured a Sand ANBU team, and was attacked by three Leaf ANBU and two Root ninjas. Horse killed my Sand prisoners, Bull killed Horse and Rooster, and I suspect Raccoon killed Bull, though there’s a chance rabbit did it, but I lean towards Raccoon.”
Hiruzen sat there, processing the information. “Do you know any of the identities of the Leaf ninjas that died?”
“No, all I know is that Rooster was an Inuzuka and that Rabbit Mask was Nami Nara. Speaking of which, I know you are not going to punish Danzo to the extent I think he deserves to be punished, but please take Nami from him, if she is still alive.”
Hiruzen looked at me, considering my request. “Is that all you want?”
“I want a lot more. I personally hold Danzo responsible for the deaths of three skilled Leaf shinobi, but I also know that life is cheap in the shinobi world, and Danzo has a skill when it comes to dodging responsibility. But Nami Nara is a skilled ninja with great potential, and getting her away from him will save her life.”
Hiruzen pondered my request. “Alright. She will be transferred out of Root by the end of the week. You know she will see this as a punishment, right?”
“As long as she is alive long enough to see it, then she can think anything she wants.” The Inuzuka woman let out a howl of rage as her transformation gave way, and she sank to one knee. I took that as my cue and got up to retrieve my prisoner and evidence. “Until next time, Lord Third.” Hiruzen gave a nod and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
