"Get out of the cave!" Hazō screamed as a bonfire of guardian tapirs descended on them.

The team came boiling out of the cave at Hazō's panicked cry, Inoue in the lead with Kagome a half-step behind and already reaching for his weapons.

For just a moment, the moon peeked out from behind the clouds and its silver light washed across the single most terrifying sight Hazō had ever seen: a tsunami of dirt and rock forty feet high racing towards him, cresting and about to smash down on his head. Three dozen tapirs and nearly a score of ninja surfed the wave as though it were water, moving impossibly fast.

Terror slowed the world around Hazō to a molasses trickle. He was pouring chakra into his muscles, accelerating his movements until they were so fast his body was on the edge of tearing itself apart under the strain. Even so, the Isanese assault force was faster, so much faster that he couldn't even react before they were on top of him. Their wave rose higher and higher, tumbling forward like an avalanche that would surely crush him—

There is a saying, taught to every student in the Mist Academy of the Ninja Arts, about giving a sealmaster time to prepare: Don't.

The Isanese assault force hit the outer edge of the team's prepared defenses. Akane's first layer of mechanical traps, intended to warn off curious toddlers, threw blunted kunai, paintbombs, and stinkbombs everywhere. The second layer fired real weapons that forced the Isanese nin and their tapirs to dodge around on the earth wave. Then it was time for Kagome's work and things got serious.

Nigh-immovable granite Multiple Earth Walls, rendered invulnerable through application of a Five Seal Barrier, were used as anchor points for vertical Force Wall seals that interrupted movement. Chakra tripwires activated, detonating explosives or triggering angled Force Walls that would cut into anyone that touched them. Massive implosion bombs went off everywhere. Claymore mines made from shaped-charge explosives piled with broken kunai fragments shredded everything around them.

The earth wave that the attackers were riding was blown apart, yanking the speed boost out from under the assault force. They tumbled everywhere, momentarily separated and shaken.

"Shell White! Meet Alpha!" Inoue yelled, flicking through handseals. Water clones sprang out from her in all directions, some of them immediately henging into copies of the rest of the team. Illusionary clones followed, adding to the chaos and confusion.

Hazō blinked and was elsewhere as one of Inoue-sensei's clones kawarimied with him. He didn't waste time, immediately turning and leaping southwest down the hill, putting as much distance between himself and the enemy as he could.

The Shell Game was the basis for many of the plans Inoue-sensei had drilled into them. It meant that she and Noburi were to spam clones and have the clones kawarimi to move the team around the field before the enemy could get a lock on them. Whenever they weren't occupied with that, the clones were to henge so that the enemy couldn't tell where the real members of the team were. There were a ton of variations on the Shell Game that specified rules of engagement and tactical goals for different team members.

'Shell White' was, in Hazō's opinion, the single most frustrating plan that Inoue-sensei had taught them. It meant 'retreat, do not engage the enemy under any circumstances, if forced to engage use absolute minimum force, killing and/or permanent damage to enemy is expressly forbidden.' He would really, really prefer it if she had called Shell Black right now. It would have made all this a lot easier. Crap, even Shell Yellow—retreat, do not engage unless rescuing a teammate, non-lethal but maiming is allowed—would have been okay. Shell White under these circumstances, though? Madness.

Still, Inoue-sensei had tactical command and the middle of combat was not the time to be second-guessing her orders. He would run for it and meet the rest of the team at Point Alpha, a fallen tree deep in the woods—presumably she didn't want to return to the cave for fear that they'd be sealed in. He wasn't too sanguine about outrunning the unbelievable speed that the Isanese nin and their tapirs got when dirt-surfing, but Shell Game would make it hard for the enemy to know which copies of the team were real, and they would all be scattering anyway. Unless the enemy could instantly guess right as to who they should attack, the team would probably be able to break contact before the enemy could target them.

He'd barely gone three steps when the very earth beneath his feet went crazy, spasming and bucking like a terrified horse. The tremors bounced him into the air; he landed on his feet and stumbled, barely staying upright. A moment later he needed to dive forward and roll to avoid low waves of rock that erupted out of the ground around him and slammed down again. A split second slower and his feet and legs would have been crushed to paste.

In mid-leap he caught a glance behind him and felt his heart sink.

Most of the team had kept their feet through the earthquake, but Inoue-sensei and Noburi were down, momentarily helpless. The Isanese nin were hurling kunai in every direction; most of them hit clones, but two of them targeted the real Inoue-sensei and Noburi. Multiple blades lanced into them, spiking him in the thigh and her in the gut. They both screamed but pushed themselves upright.

Everything in his soul screamed at Hazō to go back and save his team, but Shell White was very clear: retreat, do not engage under any circumstances. Rescuing people was what Inoue-sensei and the clones were there for. He forced himself to run away, skimming across the ground like an arrow from the bow. Noburi and Inoue-sensei were on their feet; they'd kawarimi with one of the...no, there weren't any surviving clones. Oh shit. No, it was okay, there were boulders set up throughout the area as kawarimi targets, they could escape no problem, it would be fine, all they had to do was kawa—

"DIE, YOU STINKING STINKERS!"

Hazō looked over his shoulder and felt his heart sink. Apparently, Kagome had decided that Shell White could go kiss a goat.

The sealmaster kawarimied with a small boulder that rested in the ground behind the left flank of the enemy's line. Before they could react he triggered his blast harness; forty separate shaped charges erupted in all directions, blowing his clothes off and splashing every ninja and tapir within ten meters outwards as a slurry of blood and meat fragments. Kagome was left wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and two wooden rings that held small blocks to his palms.

Every single one of the surviving Isanese nin hurled a barrage of kunai and shuriken at Kagome. The sealmaster wasn't moving fast enough, probably dazed by the noise and flash of the blast harness, he wouldn't be able to dodge—

Kagome was gone; Inoue-sensei was in his place, one hand clutching the kunai in her belly. She dropped, twisting and dodging frantically as the barrage went past. Kawarimiing into the path of a blade storm meant she had only an instant to react; she barely dodged in time, and was left with thin slices on face and arms from all-too-near misses.

"Mouse Hole Black!" she shouted, ripping the two most powerful of the explosive-seal disks off her belt and hurling them towards the nearest group of ninja before kawarimiing away. The earth wave shifted, yanking the enemy aside and interposing a tumble of rocks and dirt before the twin explosions could do more than set their targets' ears ringing.

Hazō's heart, hammering from the terror of watching both of his instructors nearly die, soared when he heard Inoue-sensei's words. Yes! Code Black—engage at will, prefer lethal force! Better yet, Mouse Hole—he didn't need to leave his teammates behind to die!

He flipped, twisting in midair to face around. He touched down, chakra adhesion anchoring his feet to the ground to arrest his momentum before he switched to repulsion and launched himself back towards the cave. An instant to spot one of the kawarimi-target boulders near the cave entrance, a split second to focus his will and bend his chakra into the long-practiced pattern—the world twisted around him, a flash of other-when and nowhere-am going by so fast his brain hardly registered it—and he was at the cave mouth.

Akane was a step away from the entryway as he arrived, Noburi draped over her shoulders in a fireman's carry. Keiko flicked into existence an instant later, replacing one of the target boulders. Inoue-sensei was waiting, swaying drunkenly and white as a ghost but still on her feet and waving the others inside.

"Go, go, go!" she shouted, tearing more explosives off her belt and hurling them back towards the enemy.

Hazō couldn't help looking back; the earthwave was motionless, the tapirs looking around uncertainly as their targets vanished and were replaced with rocks. The ninja, more situationally aware than their animal companions, had already spotted the team and were hurling kunai and shuriken furiously even as they urged the tapirs back into motion.

Hazō frantically yanked a Multiple Earth Wall out of the ground in an effort to intercept the oncoming storm. He was too late and had to furiously twist aside, turning and dodging around the projectiles as his teammates parried or dodged in turn. There were some close calls but, thankfully, no one was hit.

Before the enemy could get themselves together for a fresh assault, the team had ducked inside the cave, activating the defenses as they went, and scurried into their mouse hole.

The 'mouse hole' was actually a bunker reinforced with Kagome's Five Seal Barrier in order to be invulnerable. The rest of the team went straight in while Hazō took an instant to permanently seal the entrance to the cave with a Multiple Earth Wall, then ducked into the mouse hole.

Inoue half-lay and half-collapsed onto one of the bedrolls; Noburi dropped to his knees beside her to inspect her wound, ignoring the shuriken that was still sticking out of his thigh.

"Light!" Noburi snapped, his face twisted up with worry as he looked over Inoue's wound, as well as pain from his own. "Shitshitshitshit," he mumbled, barely noticing as Keiko swung the lantern closer and turned the wick up so the medic-nin could see what he was doing. He examined the wound even as his hands automatically flipped open the medical kit and pulled out a small blue bottle.

"Drink," he commanded. Inoue blinked, the pain and blood loss leaving her shocky and unfocused, but she managed to swallow the contents of the bottle when Noburi poured it into her mouth.

"You're bleeding!" Akane said, grabbing a towel and pressing it hard against the wound in Noburi's leg. The medic-nin hissed through clenched teeth at the spike of pain, but ignored it and kept working.

"Back off!" Noburi said, his voice tight. "If I don't get this stitched up properly Inoue-sensei's going to die right now. I'll deal with it later."

Inoue's face was going slack as the painkiller came between herself and her body. Her limbs weren't coordinating well, but she still managed to grab Kagome's arm and drag him down beside her.

"What the fuck were you thinking, you stupid son of a bitch?!" she snarled, grabbing a fistful of his hair and shaking him. "I said White!"

Kagome froze.

"Stop," Noburi said, pushing her hands off of Kagome. "Lie still so I can sew this up before you die. You can yell at him in a minute, but only if you survive."

Inoue growled but went still.

There wasn't room to pace, so Hazō sat back and did the hardest thing he'd ever done: he waited, quietly, as his wounded teammate struggled to save their teacher's life.

It took about three eternities, but Noburi finally sat back and blew out a relieved breath. He paused for just a moment to gather himself, then shook his head to clear it and got to work on his own wound. His wasn't quite as bad as Inoue-sensei's, but it was still pretty bad. The shuriken had gone in just to the right of the femoral artery, nicking it but not actually slicing it, and there was a lot of blood. Fortunately, the leg was simpler to work on than the guts and Noburi had it stitched up quickly, biting down hard on a leather strap to keep from screaming as he did. He disinfected everything with a wave of his hand and pushed medical chakra into the tissues to help them mend faster.

"Whoof," he said, sitting back limply. "Okay, I think that does it. Inoue-sensei, you're stable and I'm fine. Give me a night to sleep and I should be able to get around on crutches tomorrow. You need clear fluids and bedrest for a few days, but you should make a full recovery as long as I keep energizing the wound."

"Good," Inoue said, her voice fuzzy. She blinked, forcing herself to focus, and then looked around for Kagome.

"Time for answers," she said. "Why did you ignore orders?" she growled.

Kagome swallowed. "I'm sorry," he said in a tiny voice.

"Sorry doesn't change anything," Inoue said. "What were you thinking?"

Kagome licked his lips, eyes flicking around guiltily. "Noburi was hit," he said. "And so were you. They would have finished you off in another second. We couldn't afford to lose you—you're the leader and he's the medic. You're not expendable." He shrugged. "I couldn't let you die, so I drew fire away from you."

Inoue glared at him, teeth gritted and fists clenched, for several long seconds. Eventually she couldn't hold it anymore. The anger drained away and she sighed, dropping back onto the bedding.

"Godsdamnit, Kagome," she said, sighing. "Listen to me. First of all, you are not expendable. We need you, and I will be seriously pissed off if you get yourself killed. Got it?"

"But—" Kagome said, before immediately subsiding at Inoue's glare.

"Not. Expendable," she growled. "Now, as to the rest: I could have saved us both. I have a Wind Wall technique that will block thrown weapons. I could have thrown the Wall up to defend us from the kunai, and then grabbed Noburi and kawarimied away."

"Oh," Kagome said.

"Those ninja were from the Inoue and the Aida clans," Inoue said. "They're the loremasters and religious leaders of the village. I called 'White' because if we had managed to get out of there without hurting anyone it would have completely solved our problems with the village. It would have been obvious that they had gone behind the other elders' backs, and that would have been enough to remove them from power. The entire remaining council would have been at least marginally in our favor. As it is we've killed some of the local ninja and what might or might not be their sacred animal. This may permanently kibosh Keiko's chance of taking the trial and getting the scroll."

"Oh," Kagome said, looking sick.

"Yeah," Inoue said. "Oh." She sighed. "Get some sleep, okay? And in the future, follow orders."

Kagome nodded like his head was on a spring. "I will," he said fervently. "I promise. From now on, I will. I'll be good."

Inoue snorted and glared at him for several seconds, but eventually she gave in to the pull of the sedative and lay back.

"Hazō," she said, struggling to speak clearly as the sedative swept her away. "You're in command until I...."

The words trailed off and her breathing fell into the deep rhythm of sleep.

o-o-o-o

The advantage of having the cave physically sealed with a granite barrier was that no one was going to be sneaking up on them. Despite that, Kagome still insisted that they keep watch. None of the others had a problem with that, although Noburi and Inoue-sensei were excused from the rotation for obvious reasons.

When the sun was (presumably) rising, it was time to open the door and get outside. This was easier said than done; the Multiple Earth Wall jutsu was about creating walls, not removing them. The walls it produced were solid granite and immovably fixed to the ground. The only way to unseal the cave was to smash the wall itself. And, of course, the only way to do that was with explosives. Lots and lots of explosives. Fortunately, that wasn't an issue for a team containing Kagome.

Better yet, Kagome had provided a number of pre-infused Force Wall seals to the team's general supply. Under his teacher's fussy supervision, Hazō was able to set some of them up so as to make an impenetrable blast shield around the wall that closed off the cave. He placed four dozen tags on the wall they intended to destroy, activated them on a five-minute countdown, activated the Force Wall seals, and ducked back into the mouse hole.

Force Walls are effectively impenetrable and immovable; they make excellent blast channels. The explosion hit the Force Walls, rebounded, and smashed back on the Earth Wall, magnifying the power of the blast and reducing the granite wall to fine powder and fragments. Stalactites fell from the ceiling—several of them crashed off the roof of the mouse hole—but the cave itself stayed firm.

After a few minutes of digging rubble out of the way, the team cautiously stepped into the winding passage that led to the outside, deactivating traps as they went. The first few switchbacks were clear and none of the traps had been triggered. Unfortunately, when they reached the outmost switchback they came face-to-face with a solid wall. The earth had risen up, filling the passage from side to side and top to bottom like a stopper in a bottle.

Hazō stared thoughtfully at the wall. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought that he really should be terrified at being sealed in, yet he felt oddly detached. The plug was clearly airtight, and he fancied that it was getting a little hard to breathe in the tight confines of the passageway. There was plenty of air in the cave itself, of course, but it would be used up eventually. If they couldn't get out they were going to die, and what he was looking at was probably a solid stone wall six feet thick. Compared to that, blowing down the wall that blocked the passageway had been child's play.

"How many explosive seals do we have left?" Keiko asked calmly.

"One hundred and ninety-four," Kagome said.

Seconds trickled by. "That used to seem like a lot," Hazō observed.

Keiko nodded. "It will not be enough, will it?"

Kagome shook his head. "Doubt it. I've got ten more pairs of Force Wall seals, we can use them to set up a column to shape the blast. That will help." He seemed doubtful.

"You can make more explosives, right?" Akane asked.

Kagome shook his head. "Not fast enough," he said. "Takes me about five minutes each. We need at least a hundred more. The flames from the first blast used up a lot of the air in here. Wait too much longer, we could all suffocate."

"Oh," Akane said. "Hazo-sensei, I've seen you draw seals very quickly. Can you make what we need fast enough?"

Hazō grimaced. "I don't really have explosives down," he said. "I only just got storage seals reliably figured out. I did infuse an explosive seal once, but I'm not confident I can do it consistently."

"You can draw the blanks really fast, though," Akane said. "Could you draw them and have Kagome infuse them?"

"Are you crazy?!" Kagome said. "You want me to infuse someone else's seal blanks? Why don't we all just—" He cut himself off, chest heaving and eyes wide. He forced himself to breathe until he could continue more calmly.

"It's a very bad idea to infuse someone else's seal blanks," he said, the forced calm in his voice barely covering the panic that lay just under the surface. "Suffocating to death would be no less certain and far more pleasant."

"Oh," Akane said. "Um...Mori, do you have any ideas?"

Kei closed her eyes, her face going blank as she reached down into the ice to examine the problem. Eventually she came back up and shook her head. "I don't see a better solution than having Hazō make tags," she said. "I do see some ways to make them more likely to succeed, though."

o-o-o-o

Despite Kagome's nervousness about the air supply, he insisted that they not rush. They were only going to get one shot at this, so it needed to work the first time. Keiko and Akane took one of the lanterns and began a painstaking survey of the wall that trapped them, hoping to find some point of weakness.

While the others inspected the wall, Kagome and Hazō made explosive tags. Lots of explosive tags.

Against the canvas of his inner eye, space and time turned themselves in and out, purple became H#, and the taste of salt paraded itself across his ears. Sweat beaded on his brow as a tiny voice in the back of his mind whispered that he was going to get it wrong, that all of Kagome-sensei's dire warnings were going to be proven right—creatures from the interstices of reality would tear out his eyes and then climb through the bleeding sockets to devour his brain. Or his face would melt into a deformed puddle, closing off his nose and mouth so that he died of suffocation. Or a mis-infused tag would simply explode and kill his team.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Whenever the fear got too bad and he started to shake he put down his brush and focused on breathing until he was calm again, then went back to drawing and infusing tags.

Four hours later they were ready. Heavy effort with a kunai had chipped a crack in the wall that sealed them in. A single explosive tag wedged into the crack had expanded that crack into a small recess. Hundreds of explosive tags were packed into that recess and a Force Wall was erected that would seal it closed so that the blast could only propagate outwards. Hazō used Multiple Earth Wall to raise support columns throughout the cavern, and to build an angled shield that led from the door of their mousehole to the exit in a wall-hugging crawlway that would hopefully be safe even in a cave-in. With everything ready, the team set the timers on the explosives, activated the Force Wall, dove back into the mouse hole, and covered their ears.

The explosion was catastrophic. The ground bounced under them and dust rained from the ceiling.

"Wha / huh?!" Noburi and Inoue said, starting awake and reaching for weapons.

"It's okay," Hazō said, hurrying to reassure them. "The entryway got sealed up, we had to blast it open." He talked loudly to be heard over the ringing in everyone's ears.

They settled in to wait until their hearing came completely back and they were sure that the cave wasn't going to collapse around them. The passageway was either open or it wasn't; if it was, then it would still be open in a few minutes. If it wasn't, then they were out of options and they were going to suffocate. Either way, sitting here for a while wouldn't change anything.

"Okay," Inoue said. "That should be long enough. Hazō, Keiko, Akane, Kagome, grab your gear and go check it out. Me and Gimpy will stay behind and eat bon-bons while you do all the work."

Akane laughed at the joke; Noburi clamored his objections to being called 'Gimpy', realizing only too late that that was the best possible way to be sure the name stuck. After a while he subsided grumpily and lay back on the bedding.

The rest of the team strapped on their full combat gear before cautiously emerging into bright sunlight and freezing air. There had been a new snowfall overnight, and the ground was knee-deep in fluffy white powder. It was also smashed, warped, and torn where dozens of earth-surfing tapirs had run into thousands of explosive seals.

Several dozen ninja and a small herd of tapirs were waiting outside, staring at the team as they came out of the blasted-open hole in the mountain. Many of them were leaning on shovels and picks; they had clearly been working on opening up the cave and had presumably backed off when they heard the small explosion the team had used to create the pocket for the large blast.

"There you are!" Takahashi said, pushing forward. "I've got good news! The council voted to let Mai take the Trial of the Scroll!"

Hazō blinked. "What."

By now Takahashi was close enough to whisper without being heard by the other Isanese ninja behind him. "You need to get her to the shrine right now," he said quietly. "When your blast opened up the cavern, someone went to notify the rest of the village. The other elders are in closed session, interviewing the Inoue and the Aida about what happened last night. Once that session ends and they hear that you're out, you'll be dragged in and tried. The Inoue and Aida will claim that you attacked one of the patrols in an attempt to escape and they sent in a reaction force to extract their people. The whole thing will take forever and, assuming you aren't condemned to death, the elders will very likely revoke Mai's permission to take the trial. If you go now and she succeeds you'll have the scroll and you'll be the Heir of Akio. It'll prove beyond a doubt that the Inoue and the Aida were wrong, and cut the legs out from under their position."

"She can't," Hazō said automatically. "We have wounded, we can't split up—"

"Yes we can," Keiko said. "Kagome and I will go to the shrine with Takahashi-sensei as escort. You and Akane go inside, activate the defenses, and guard the others. If you hear anyone trying to get through the defenses, you can always seal the cavern again. You should make as many explosives as you can while you wait."

Hazō stared at her incredulously, then turned back to Takahashi. "Please excuse us for one moment, sir," he said.

He led Keiko and the others a few steps away. "Are you crazy?" he asked quietly.

Keiko shook her head. "There are no safe paths right now," she said. "This is the safest of the ones that are open to us. It's very unlikely that we'll be assaulted again before the council meeting finishes, which gives us a window of opportunity. You saw what happened last night—those tapirs would have crushed us with ease if we hadn't rabbited immediately. We aren't going to win a straight combat against them, especially with Inoue-sensei injured. We can't run effectively either, not while carrying Inoue-sensei and Noburi. If we tried to run or fight we would destroy our chance to get the scroll peacefully and would be at war with the entire village." She shrugged. "This is the best way I can see to keep us all safe."

Hazō bit his tongue and thought about that. The funny part was that he was sure Keiko meant exactly what she said—that she was focused on keeping the team safe. Had it been Noburi speaking, Hazō would have assumed that the boy was simply justifying his desire to get the scroll that would make him more powerful. Mori's bizarre mind didn't think on those lines, though.

"This plan stinks like cat piss," Kagome said. "She's right, though. Only way we're not going to end up fighting those stinkers."

"Well?" Keiko asked. "What's your decision, commander?"

Hazō sighed. Why oh why had he not slapped his hand over Inoue-sensei's mouth before she could saddle him with this job?

"Fine," he said, already regretting his decision. "Akane and I will hold the fort. Get back as soon as you can." He pulled his belt off and held it out to Keiko. "Here," he said. "I used the seals on the disks to blow the wall, but the seal on the belt itself is still good. It's not much, but it's something."

Akane quickly pulled her belt off as well and passed it over; Keiko took both with a nod of thanks and looped them around her waist before turning back to rejoin Takahashi.

o-o-o-o

There were two ninja on guard at the shrine, standing tall in front of the doors with ceremonial naginata grounded beside them at a parade-ground angle and bows slung over their shoulders. They dropped into a ready stance as Takahashi, Keiko, and Kagome approached.

"Good day, Elder," the one on the left called. He was a squat, stocky man with blonde hair that almost hid the streaks of grey. Despite the apparent onset of middle age, Kei had not the slightest doubt that this was a man to be reckoned with: the way he moved, the way his eyes missed nothing, the precision of his balance, it all added up to a skilled fighter. She immediately began calculating attack angles. The naginata was probably not just ceremonial, and both ninja were likely to be much more comfortable at melee than she was; she would need to maintain range or they would cut her in half. On the other hand, the bows would also give them a ranged ability, and a much higher ammunition capacity than the six kunai she had strapped on. She had the ones in the sealed bag, of course, but it would take a moment to get those. Optimal strategy would be—

Her thoughts were cut off as Takahashi-sensei stepped forward with a smile and an extended scroll.

"Good morning, Ryū," he said. "Today is a momentous day. The council has voted to let Mai here take the Trial of the Scroll."

Ryū was extremely controlled; he barely blinked. His partner openly gaped.

"Bu...bu...but..." he younger ninja stammered. "They wh—"

Ryū, eyes still fixed on Takahashi, raised a hand and his partner shut up. "May I see that, please?" he asked. Takahashi silently passed the scroll over; Ryū unrolled it and scanned the contents carefully.

"May I ask where the other elders are, sir?" he asked.

"Waiting at the council chamber," Takahashi said with a shrug. "Aida and Inoue were both in agreement that the council shouldn't attend, as we might either see things we weren't meant to see or somehow interfere with the trial. I'm only here to escort Mai to the shrine and then back to the chambers."

Kagome twitched at that and started muttering under his breath.

Ryū didn't miss the twitch.

"Who might you be, sir?" he asked, looking at the sealmaster.

Kagome's eyes got wider. "What? Why do you want to know? Is there a problem? Because if there is, I'm warning you—" His mouth closed with a snap as Keiko laid a calming hand on his arm.

"This is her uncle," Takahashi said smoothly. "He's a bit nervous about Mai taking the trial."

Keiko was standing at an angle such that she could just catch Takahashi-sensei rolling his eyes at Ryū and mouthing 'crazy'. Ryū looked doubtfully from Kagome to Takahashi-sensei, then back to the scroll in his hands. He read it again, then studied Keiko carefully.

"I wish you all the fortune," he said at last, giving Keiko a sincere bow. He stepped back, his junior following him, and swept his arm towards the shrine.

Takahashi escorted Keiko to the door of the shrine; Kagome walked backwards behind them, keeping a wary eye on the two ninja guards, as well as searching the surroundings for all potential attackers, lupchanz-infested or otherwise.

Takahashi faced Keiko and gravely removed a chain from around his neck, revealing the heavy iron key that had been hidden in his shirt. He held this out to Keiko with a serious expression.

"I, Saburō, sent to the council by the Takahashi to speak for the ninjutsu wielders, and sent by the council to speak for the village, and sent by the village to speak to the spirit of our forefathers Jukodo Akio and his master Ui Isas, entrust to you, Kawasaki Mai of the eighth clan, my key. This key was forged at the time of the Founding. It is the mark of my authority as a council member, and its loan demonstrates the trust that the council has placed in you. It will offer you safe passage through the first barrier. May it bring you fortune in the trial beyond."

Keiko took the key from him and bowed deeply. With a whispered word of reassurance to Kagome, she unlocked the shrine and stepped inside.

The hallway was dim, lit only by the light from outside. It was narrow, only four feet wide and perhaps six feet high. Walls, floor, and ceiling were all thickly inscribed with seals and at the far end was another heavy, steel-banded door.

"No way," Kagome said, grabbing her arm and looking at the seal-covered hallway. "You are not walking into that. I don't care—"

She lay a hand on his arm and made herself smile. Her mother had often reminded her that smiling was important; it helped relax others.

"It's all right, Kagome," she whispered. "Please, trust me. I need this if I'm to be strong enough to protect you all."

Kagome paused, looking as though he'd swallowed a gallon of bugs soaked in urine. Reluctantly, he took his hand off her arm.

"If you don't come back, I will destroy this village," he said, in a voice that was not nearly as quiet as Keiko would have preferred. He shot Takahashi a glare, then looked back at Keiko, his eyes blazing with nigh-fanatic intensity. "Boom. Squash. Crater. I promise."

Keiko swallowed the lump in her throat and blinked away the water that gathered in her eyes. Impulsively, she pulled Kagome down so she could kiss his cheek.

"I promise," she said. "I will do my best." She patted his arm and smiled at him one last time—smiles help, her mother's voice whispered—and stepped inside, pulling the doors closed behind her. A bit of light leaked under the door, but she didn't need it for the next step. Slipping the chain over her neck so her hands were free, she rummaged in her pack for the correct scroll and unsealed an already-lit oil lantern.

With a deep breath she raised the lantern high and walked down the corridor, forcing herself to stand tall and step confidently.

The seals remained passive and she reached the far door without incident. The key unlocked that one too and she was inside the shrine proper.

It was small, a single room twenty feet on a side and fifteen feet at the highest point. A giant seal, easily four feet across, was drawn in the center of each wall and two more on the ceiling. Other than that, the room was absolutely bare except for a wooden pedestal in the center. Atop the pedestal lay a velvet pillow, atop which lay a scroll as long as her forearm and twice as thick. Despite the small size of the room, there was a looming sense of presence in the stark, empty space.

She looked around carefully before walking forward and examining the scroll. She paced around the pedestal, leaning in close to examine the scroll before she touched it.

The scroll was age-yellowed vellum, carefully wound around a pair of rods made from a smoothly polished dark gray wood that she didn't recognize. A thick ribbon tied it closed, and a seal was written on the ribbon.

She frowned. The scroll was age-yellowed—not much, but some. That couldn't be right. There were stories of summoning contracts going back to the Sage of Six Paths. If scrolls aged like regular paper (or, in this case, vellum), then over the centuries they would fall apart and be lost. It was possible that copies could be made, of course, but if so why weren't there dozens of them?

She paused and thought about that. It was possible that the summon animals only wanted one summoner at a time, but it was more likely that this was a trick, that it wasn't the real scroll. This village was fanatical about protecting their scroll, it was their entire purpose for existing. A wooden building, even one protected by seals and a few guards? Surely that wasn't the best they could do.

She inspected the pedestal carefully, looking for a false panel or a compartment in which the real scroll might be hidden. There was no such thing. The pedestal was apparently a simple wooden column three feet thick and carved from a single immense tree. The base was wider, spreading out for stability and fixed to the floor with heavy iron bolts.

She cocked her head and smiled a tiny, satisfied smile. The pedestal was bolted to the floor, not nailed. Bolts were rare in the Elemental Nations; forging the threads was an exacting and time-consuming process that only master smiths could manage. They also had the interesting property that they could be removed, unlike nails. These bolts were carefully attended, rust-free and with a faint scent of oil.

Experimentally, she twisted one of them; it turned easily. With growing excitement, she unscrewed all four nuts and set them aside. The pedestal was massive and smooth; she had to use chakra adhesion to get a grip and channel a huge amount of chakra into her muscles in order to lift it, but she managed to slide it aside with a grunt.

Beneath the pedestal was a narrow hole, fixed to the side of which was a ladder.

The ladder went down out of sight in the dimness, although when she held the lantern down into it she thought she could see a floor far below. She forced herself to breathe carefully and think. Finally, she took out a kunai, put it in her teeth to free her hands, and climbed down into the hole.

Climbing while holding the lantern was difficult and the ladder was nearly fifty feet long. She had a feeling that touching the sides might be bad, so she moved carefully. Step down with the left foot. Step down with the right foot. Use chakra adhesion to hold the knees to the ladder while moving the hand down one rung. Step down with the left foot....

Eventually she made it to the bottom and found herself in a small stone-paved chamber hollowed from the earth and braced with timbers. Five passages led off in all directions, the dirt in each one packed down by generations of feet.

She examined the area carefully, but found nothing of interest. Choosing a passage at random she marked the floor with her kunai and proceeded.

She'd gone barely ten yards when her lantern glinted off a tripwire at ankle height. Looking carefully, she was able to follow it up the wall and across the ceiling before it disappeared into a small recess. She stepped over it and continued.

The next trap was a covered pit that reached from one side of the corridor to the other; she skirted around it by treewalking on the wall.

She stepped over the small, foot-sized pit with the spike at the bottom.

She turned back when she saw what was probably an explosive seal on the wall.

She found the concealed door.

And the concealed trapdoor.

And the other concealed trapdoor.

She walked on the ceiling to avoid both the tripwire and the soft spots on the walls with the spikes behind them, for which the tripwire was the distraction.

She spent twenty minutes carefully disabling the net of thin wires that stretched across the corridor.

She found the paved room with the ornate fake scroll, avoided stepping on any of the pressure plates, and then left without touching the fake.

She thought it was odd when she climbed down a ladder into a room with only one exit and that exit was a tightly-sealed door. Instead of directly opening it she one out one of her three remaining explosive seals. This one was a shaped charge, the other two regular omnidirectional ones—she'd offered the tags up for the job of blowing the cave open and been flatly refused. Ishihara had said that three tags were not going to make a difference to the job of getting the cave open, but they might during the test. Turned out that the naive, not-too-bright, overly-optimistic puppy dog was right. Who would have thought?

She shook off the reverie; she'd lost a fair amount of blood from the wounds the traps had inflicted, and her brain was starting to drift a bit. She made herself focus and carefully placed the shaped-charge seal on the ceiling, aimed down at an angle towards the door. She armed it on a one minute timer, then climbed back up the ladder.

When the tag went off it blew the door open; somehow Kei was not surprised when she cautiously climbed partway back down to check and found the sunken area full of a swirling greenish, undoubtedly toxic, mist. Well, she was a little surprised—that trap must have required a lot of maintenance. Still, if you had a village of ninja with nothing to do but build and maintain traps for a few centuries, it became a lot more reasonable.

The arrow trap she did not find, nor did she dodge it. Fortunately it was only a graze; she cleaned it as thoroughly as she could, taking care to wash it thoroughly in order to remove whatever the poison was, bound it up, and kept going. She was limping, but still functional.

She stepped over the next tripwire.

And the next.

She missed the explosive seal, but dove clear of the blast...mostly.

At each intersection she marked the ground to show which way she'd gone. Where there were two marks she knew that everything behind that point was useless. Eventually, after what felt like years but probably was only a couple of hours, she found the central chamber.

It was much like the shrine above, except without seals: a pedestal in the center (this one of marble instead of wood) with a pillow and scroll. She could tell from the corridor that this scroll was pristine, seemingly as new as the day it was made. Unfortunately, she could not get to it because there was a thick steel gate in the way.

The thing was massive, and she couldn't imagine how it had been gotten down here. (Maybe as individual components that were somehow welded on site? Whatever, not the time.) It was anchored into heavy timbers that were in turn thoroughly fixed into the ground. There was a lock, but Takahashi-sensei's key didn't fit and the tumblers were too heavy for her lockpicks.

She eyed the gate thoughtfully. She still had the two explosive seals, but they were omnidirectional and she had a feeling that setting them off in here might be a bad plan. It could collapse the tunnel.

She caught herself drifting again and dragged her thoughts back on track. She unsealed a canteen and some trail bars, forcing herself to eat and drink before going back to the problem. It helped, at least a bit.

She was coming up empty on ideas until she shifted and her belt dug into her side. Immediately, she scrambled to pull off the belts that Akane and Hazō had given her, as well as her own. All three belts had been made by Kagome, and the shaped-charge seals on them were perfectly viable.

She looped the belts through the bars in a triangle pattern and tied each one off, taking care that the seals were facing inwards. A careful check showed that everything was as good as it could be, so she activated the timers and jogged back down the corridor.

There was a crump! immediately followed by a metallic clang! When she came back she saw that the blasts from the belts had sliced neatly through the heavy steel bars, chopping out a triangular section of the gate large enough for her to climb through. She checked the roof and walls to be sure that they hadn't been weakened by the blast, then went in.

She examined the pedestal carefully before hanging her lantern on the convenient hook and picking up the scroll. Like the one in the shrine, it was held closed with a ribbon and there was a seal on the ribbon. Unlike the one up above there were seals on the outside of the scroll and the end caps. Nothing happened when she touched it and a careful examination showed nothing unexpected, so she untied the ribbon and opened the scroll.

Or, at least, she tried. The ribbon was absolutely immobile. No matter how she tugged or pushed, it refused to budge. It wouldn't untie, it wouldn't move on the scroll, and she hesitated to try cutting it. Finally, with no other ideas, she tucked the scroll into her pack and limped back up into the shrine itself, then out into the daylight.

Takahashi-sensei, Kagome, and the two guards were waiting for her. So were two dozen Isanese nin, forty nervous-looking tapirs, and a glowering council of elders. Kagome had his back to the wall by the doors and looked like he really wanted to be throwing explosives everywhere, but Takahashi-sensei was standing in front of him and talking fast.

"I say again: we voted, and that vote is still valid," he was saying as she emerged. "Simply because two of our number decided to go behind the council's back—" He broke off as the doors of the shrine swung open to reveal a mussed and bloody Keiko with scroll in hand.

"She passed," Azai said, eyes wide.

"No," Inoue-the-elder said. "The scroll is not open. Clearly it has rejected her...assuming that is even the true scroll. She could easily have made a forgery to dupe us."

Keiko bowed deeply. "Honored elders," she said. "I have not yet attempted to open the scroll. It seemed a task that should happen in front of all of you. A task for which I should speak to the Aida that I might do it in a way that is respectful of your customs."

Aida opened her mouth to say something that would undoubtedly be vitriolic, but Yoshida cut her off. "Let me see that," she said. "I can attest to whether it's the true scroll."

She stepped forward and took the scroll from Keiko, giving it a quick but professional examination. "Yes," she said. "This is the true scroll. The seal of summoning is unmistakable." She tapped her finger on the seal that covered the ribbon.

"Give me that," Kagome said, snatching the scroll from her.

Yoshida's eyes went wide and fury poured across her face. "How dare you?!" she said. "How dare you—"

"You idiot," Kagome said, not looking up from his examination. "This is a locking seal, and a primitive one. A monkey with a pointy stick could get it open in twenty minutes." He plopped down on the ground and rummaged in his pack for supplies, muttering to himself and oblivious to everything around him.

'Everything around him', of course, included a lot of council members pulling weapons.

"Wait!" said Yoshida and Takahashi together, hands extended placatingly to the others. They looked at each other in surprise until Takahashi nodded and gestured for her to go first.

"Wait," Yoshida said again. "If he's right that he can undo it, we will finally see the words of Ui Isas revealed to us. Since the founding we have struggled to understand the art of sealcraft. This could be the biggest breakthrough in our history. Imagine the knowledge we stand to gain."

"And, again, we voted to let her take the trial," Takahashi reminded them. "Apparently we didn't know what the trial actually was, but that changes nothing. If our word is to mean anything, if our authority and honor are to remain unsullied, then we must give her the chance to be accepted by the scroll and that which it brings forth. Naito unlocking the scroll is no different than us giving her the key to the shrine so that she could attempt the trial."

"Blasphemy!" Inoue said. "You are allowing an outsider to tamper with the scroll of the ancestors!"

"Calmly, Inoue," Azai said. "Takahashi and Yoshida are both right. Our honor is at stake, and there is much to gain. For now, there is no harm in letting them try. If he can't unlock it, or if she is not accepted, then we will deal with them." He waved vaguely towards the mass of tapirs standing restlessly to the side.

Inoue fell silent and stood, icy fury on her face.

Keiko felt a chill go down her spine at Inoue's reaction and Azai's words, but long years of training prevented the fear from showing on her face. She kept her eyes on the elders but stepped back and squatted down so she was at Kagome's level.

"Can you unlock it?" she asked quietly, still not looking away from the elders. She was hyperaware of the position of each of the kunai in her holsters, and mentally rehearsed the motions needed to retrieve her two remaining explosive seals.

Kagome grunted but didn't otherwise reply. He was busy measuring part of the seal with a protractor while staring at the thing through a jeweler's loupe.

Minutes trickled by. The elders were becoming restless; Takahashi and Yoshida were looking more and more nervous as the situation dragged on. They were both all in on this, and if Kagome failed to deliver they would be lucky to survive, let alone retain their positions.

"Ha!" Kagome said. He laid a finger on the seal and pushed a little chakra in. There was a tiny noise somewhere between click and snap, and the ribbon loosened. Kagome grunted satisfaction and passed the scroll to Keiko.

With hands that she couldn't keep from shaking, she unrolled the scroll a foot or so and looked inside. Whatever she'd expected, it was not a long list of names written in the rust-red of dried blood.

Kei took a deep breath and pushed herself down into the very edge of the ice that was her bloodline, just enough to make the fear go away. Far off, she heard the Mori Voice whispering words of failure and apathy, but she ground those words under her heel. With smooth, mechanical precision she sat down and placed the scroll in her lap, unwinding the bottom and winding up the top until she reached the final entry on the list of names: Ui Isas. She pulled a kunai and sliced her left forearm until blood flowed. There was a gasp from the elders and they started forward, but she was faster. With the ice controlling her every movement she dipped her right forefinger in the blood and swiftly drew the kanji for her name—her true name, not the alias by which these people knew her—onto the scroll.

Thunder split the sky. A puff of smoke exploded out of the ground in front of her, dispersing to reveal a three-foot high animal unlike anything she'd ever seen.

"About damn time someone called on the mighty clan of Pangolin," the animal said, putting its tiny arms on its hips and looking Keiko over. "A little young, aren't you?"

"Uh..." said Keiko. The shock had jolted her out of the ice and all the nervousness was hammering into her again.

The creature shrugged. "Whatever. What's your name, kid?"

Keiko looked at the elders uncertainly. Introducing herself to her new summons by an alias seemed like a very bad plan, but revealing her true name to the elders after lying about it for months....

"Keiko," she said. "Mori Keiko." She paused, fumbling. "It's very nice to meet you."

The summons nodded. "I'm Pandā, nice to meet you too. You ready to go?"

"Go?" she asked.

The animal clicked its tongue disapprovingly. "Go to the Summon Realm, of course. What, you think all you had to do was sign it and we'd be at your beck and call? Geez, kid, show some respect. You need to come meet people, let us get to know you and decide if we want to be your summons."

"Uh..." said Keiko. She knew she needed to be saying something here, but her brain was utterly paralyzed.

"I'll take that as a yes," Pandā said. "Let's go."

There was a crack! and blue smoke swirled throughout the area. When it cleared, Keiko and the summons were gone.

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