Chapter 66: Run! Run like the Wind!

"Kai! Damnit!" Hazou said, before leaping on Kagome and spinning him around. The sealmaster yelped and started to struggle in panic but Hazou smacked his shoulder.

"Calm down, I just need something!" the genin said, digging frantically through Kagome's pack for the set of scrolls that were, of course, at the very bottom. "Here's the plan," he said, not looking up. "We head over that way"—he gestured west-northwest—"moving fast and leaving a trail. Hopefully we can pull the Hot Springs and Leaf teams together. Whether they start talking or fighting, it gives us more time to escape. When they're getting close we stage our deaths, Yellow Flash to break trail, then run like hell. Noburi, dole out some water for everyone. Overcharge us, because we need to run fast, and we're probably going to be tossing around a lot of jutsu."

"Right," Noburi said, twisting his barrel around and pulling the top off so he could scoop some water into the cup that he kept strapped to the side for that purpose. He passed it to Keiko first; she gulped it down gratefully, shivered once as the extra chakra burned through her coils, then gave him a grateful nod and passed the cup back.

"Why leave traces?" Keiko asked. "If one team or the other misses us, that's good."

Hazou shook his head. "Either one of them can wipe us out," he said. "We need to lose both of them, and our best chance to do that is if they bump into each other. That'll buy us several minutes while they sort out who they are and what's going on."

He finally found the black-banded scrolls containing the dead bodies of the Leaf patrol that they'd killed all that time ago. He yanked them out of Kagome's pack, spilling several other scrolls to the ground in the process. The sealmaster bent down and started gathering them up with swift, efficient movements.

"Okay, let's roll," Hazou said, hurrying to Noburi in order to get his share of the water. The extra chakra burned through him, its foreign nature itching at his coils; it left him buzzing and nauseous as though he'd just eaten a gallon of super-strong tea leaves.

Within seconds everyone had had their share and was on the move. They took care to leave a few traces—scuff the leaves of the forest floor a bit here, leap onto a tree trunk and push off a little too hard so that a piece of bark was chipped off there.

They practically flew through the forest, burning chakra profligately in order to gain a few extra seconds on their pursuers. Two miles later Hazou gestured for them to pull up in a shallow dell.

"Keiko, summon Pandaa," Hazou said, unrolling the black-banded scrolls and unsealing the flaccid bodies of the Leaf patrol that they'd killed so long ago. He piled them in an untidy heap and stacked explosive seals on top.

"He can't hope to defeat what's coming," Keiko said, but she hurried through the handseals regardless. A second later there was a poof! of smoke and the young pangolin stood before them.

"Ooh!" Pandaa said. "Hi, Keiko! Boy, that just never gets old. Dimensional travel is so neat!"

"Quiet," Hazou said. "Pandaa, we've got two groups of ninja descending on us. Can you activate an explosive tag?"

Pandaa drummed his claws on his underbelly. "Um...I'm not sure? I've never tried. I mean, I'm a cultural liaision. I hadn't even been to the Human Path until—"

"Okay, never mind," Hazou said quickly. "Kagome-sensei, I need a tripwire seal from here to there." He gestured to a spot near a patch of brush a few meters away. "Pandaa, I want you to dig yourself a hole over there and wait in it. When you see the enemy ninja approach, you reach out and swing your hand through the tripwire, okay? Then unsummon yourself. Can you do that?"

Pandaa drew himself up to his full height and braced to attention. "Yes, sir!" he snapped, interlacing his claws. "I've got your back! I'll cover you against the enemy, yes indeed! I'll—"

"What are you doing, sensei?" Akane asked suspiciously.

"We're going to stage our deaths," Hazou said. "One of the pursuing teams gets here, Pandaa sets off the explosives, the bodies get blown up. The enemy team pauses, shocked. The other team shows up a few seconds later, drawn by the noise. To them it looks like the first team just took us out. The two groups should be jumpy and they should wrangle a bit, giving us time to get away."

"I'm ready!" Pandaa called, waving one clawed paw. He was standing in a meter-deep trench, a spray of dirt behind him. "This is exciting!"

"Sensei, we can't destroy the bodies!" Akane said. "We were going to give those back to Jiraiya so they could be returned to their families. Destroying them would be un—" She cut herself off, glancing at Keiko. "Would be unwise."

"Girl's got a point," Inoue said. "The bodies would add verismilitude to the blast, but Jiraiya is going to be pissed at us for the mess we made in Hot Springs. Returning the bodies might buy us some goodwill." She seemed dubious about the statement even as she made it.

"Wouldn't matter anyway," Kagome grunted, kneeling down to set up the tripwire. "Tripwire seal only sets off one tag at each end. That's not enough to hide the fact that this is four bodies, not six."

"Hang on, I got this," Noburi said, scrambling in his pack. "Seal the bodies back up, I've got something we can use instead."

Hazou started to object, then shut his mouth. There was no time to argue, and he needed everyone onboard. With a few quick taps he had the bodies in their storage scrolls again.

Noburi knelt down and opened out four separate storage scrolls. Inside each one was a tarpaulin wrapped around massive slabs of bloody meat, each one nearly the size of his torso.

"What in the hell is that?" Hazou asked in amazement.

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"Leftover steaks from those wild boars we killed," Noburi said, grunting as he dragged the steaks around. "Help me lay them out. Stick 'em close together and after the bombs go off they'll look like bodies exploded by more than one tag. It'll buy us a little time while the enemy figures out how many pieces there were."

Kagome snorted from where he was finishing setting up the tripwire seals. He finished aligning the two seals, then dug into his pack. "They're really big steaks," he said. "They're not going to look like bodies. You need to burn them." He held a storage scroll out to Noburi. A storage scroll with the double red stripes that marked it as one of Kagome's 'stupid boxes.'

Everyone paused. A moment later Noburi took the scroll from him and set it on the stack of meat.

"Pandaa, remember: unsummon yourself as soon as you set off the explosives," Keiko said. "I don't want you hurt."

"Yes, ma'am!" Pandaa said, giving a little hop. "I wait until the enemy gets here, then I break the trigger and blow everything up, then I unsummon! I am so on this!" He hopped from foot to foot. "This is going to be so exciting! My parents are never going to believe it!"

"Not sure how believable those are," Inoue-sensei said doubtfully, studying the 'bodies' that Noburi and Hazou had finished arranging. "Bad guys might notice before the stupid box goes up."

"It's dark and the enemy shouldn't have more than a moment to look," Hazou said. "Okay, everyone, time to Yellow Flash. Remember, wait until the target hits the ground. And don't throw too far or it'll be out of r—"

"Hazou, chill," Noburi said with a snort. "We practiced this enough."

"Right, sorry," Hazou said. "Let's go."

While Hazou had been worrying, Akane had pulled out a small flask of lamp oil and dipped the point of her kunai in it. The youthful genin set it ablaze with a single handseal, a snap of her fingers, and a muttered "Hotaru no Jutsu."

"I hope those stinkers don't see the light," Kagome said, obliviously voicing the thought that everyone else had been having but not saying.

"Calculated risk," Inoue-sensei said. "It lets us move farther than we would be able to otherwise and should let us break the trail. Come on, let's go."

Akane hurled her burning kunai into the darkness, slamming it into the trunk of a tree a good forty meters away—much farther than any ninja could have leaped in one jump. The tiny flames gave just enough light that she could see, and switch with, the log that dropped out of the kunai a moment later. One after another, the rest of the team hurled their own tag-equipped weapons into the tree beside Akane's marker and transported themselves.

Inoue went last. She switched in, grabbed the tree trunk, and took a moment to pull all the kunai out of the tree and beat out the dribbles of flame. By the time she was done Akane had lit another kunai and hurled it into the night. A moment later the young genin was gone, a log taking her place and falling to the forest floor ten meters below. One by one the rest of the team followed.

They'd each been carrying three PMYF seals, and they used them all; under these conditions it was much slower than running, but it left almost no traces.

There wasn't enough moonlight to allow for treehopping, so once the team used up their PMYF seals they hit the ground and started running at the fastest pace the darkness—and the need for stealth—allowed. They'd been traveling for barely a minute when the night was shattered by a massive BOOM! and the shadows got slightly lighter in the red/gold light that came from behind them. Kagome pulled up, turning to face the blaze with an expression of childlike glee on his face.

"Sensei, we need to go," Hazou said, yanking on the sealmaster's arm.

"One second," Kagome said, brushing him off without looking away. "I almost never get to use those things. I forgot how beautiful they are." He started snickering. "Burn, you stinkers! Burn!"

A faint breeze kissed Hazou's cheek, blowing back towards the firelight.

"Holy shit!" Inoue-sensei said. "Forest fire! Run!"

They abandoned all traces of caution or stealth and ran. Feet spurned the ground, bouncing from tree trunk to tree trunk to stay clear of the roots and bad footing on the ground. It wasn't stealthy and it left traces, but no one cared.

Behind them, the fire monster ravened through the trees, flames leaping through the upper branches with what a normal human would have considered terrifying speed. The forest animals fled before it in terror; the team ignored them except as obstacles to be bypassed.

At ninja speed the team quickly outpaced the fires, but they still didn't slow down. Forest fire, Leaf ninja, Hot Springs ninja...there was absolutely nothing good that could happen as a result of slowing down.

Everyone, even ninja, have their limits. The team finally reached theirs when Akane pitched over unconscious.

"Shitshitshit!" Hazou said, sliding to his knees next to his apprentice. "What did you do, you stupid girl?!" He grabbed her hand; it was cold and clammy, and he couldn't feel a pulse.

"Move!" Noburi said, shoving him aside. He lifted Akane's head and poured water into her mouth; it dribbled out her lips.

"Do something!" Hazou said, frantic. He could practically feel the heat draining out of Akane's dead—no, dying! not dead, just dying!—body.

"This is gonna suck," Noburi muttered. He clipped Akane's jaw between the thumb and finger of his right hand so that he could tilt her head back and simultaneously pull her mouth open. Quickly, he poured in a cupful of water, sealed his lips to hers, and blew. Hard.

Akane convulsed, slamming her head into Noburi's before he could pull back. She choked and spat water like a half-drowned woman. Much of it went in his face and mouth.

Noburi sat up and wiped his face, spitting out his re-gifted chakra water. He watched Akane for a moment before giving a relieved sigh. "Okay," he said. "She'll be fine in a minute. She coughed most of it out before it could help, so I'll give her another dose when she's breathing properly. That was too damn close, though."