Chapter 32: Life goes on (Part V)

They reached the Land of This within two days an a half. That gave them plenty of time to meet with their client and take a lay of the terrain. The country was really small and the capital was the only real city. Everything else was small villages with twenty to fifty inhabitants at most. If the Land of That wanted to conquer their neighbors they would need to take the capital. As such Kakashi and Yugao did some recon to determine the most likely entries the mercenary group would use to take over. In the meantime, Riku was placing seals all around the castle. Traps mostly. On the fourth day after the beginning of the mission, in other words on the due date of the attack, the team was ready to proceed. They were alert and prepared. Except for what the enemy did. Whoever they were, they came when the sun was high and alone through the main entrance of the city. They opened two scrolls and unsealed a hundred puppets who began attacking.

“What the heck.” Riku whispered from the top of the room the team was on.

“That’s Sasori of the rand-sand.” Kakashi announced and began to hop to the nearest rooftop in the direction of their enemy. He was followed by Riku and Yugao.

“That’s… not so bad. From what I read in the bingo book, the real danger is not the puppets but the poisons he uses. I can create an antidote with time and a sample of the poison so better not get scratched.”

“How do we proceed?” inquired Yugao.

“Type-X against the puppets. Let’s try to take as many as we can in one volley. After that… Riku, since you’re the medic and the only one who can create an antidote you're dealing with the puppets that were not destroyed. Once done, you’re on support duty from the back. Yugao, you and I will take care of him.”

““Understood.””

“You don’t need to use your Type-X. I can clone mine with a Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu. It will be taxing but since I’m not directly fighting him.”

“The Sandaime thought it to you?” A surprised Kakashi asked.

“No. I just recreated it.”

Filling that information for later, Kakashi gave his agreement. They reached their targets pretty quickly and Riku unleashed a dozen Type-X from each hand. As soon as he did he used the jutsu and a simple dozen became a few hundreds. The small but powerful explosion took out two thirds of the small puppets army.

“You! My army!” the big burly man wearing a black coat with red clouds screamed.

The team didn’t pay attention, Yugao and Kakashi going through a breach to reach their enemy. Meanwhile Riku moved fast, kicking and punching with his super strength any puppet that he could get access to. He could have leveled the entire area but that would have destroyed the buildings and the people living in it would probably have died. While fighting he kept an eye on his teammates as much as he could. It turned out to be a good thing because he saved Kakashi just in time from the hit that he could only describe as a giant and sharp tail. The Type-B1 that landed at Kakashi’s feet had released a small barrier that had taken one hit then broke. That had been more than enough for the jonin who retreated hastily out of range. Not missing the opportunity offered by the distraction Kakashi ended up being, Yugao came from the side and cut through the tail. She was ready to strike for the main body when the severed part of the tail that had fallen into the ground, pierced her shoulder from behind. Riku cursed under his breath and accelerated the destruction of the dozen or so puppets left. Meanwhile Kakashi attacked Sasori to get his attention and allowed Yugao to retreat. For that purpose he had used a Katon jutsu in the hope of at least damaging the wood the puppet was made of. Sasori simply dodged and the wounded Yugao began to attack Kakashi.

Seeing that the situation had turned from bad to very very bad. Riku created a shadow clone to deal with the few puppets left. Throwing a set of Type-B2, he captured Yugao. Not stopping there, he rushed Sasori and made a feint, prompting the mercenary to dodge when he didn’t need to and putting him in the perfect position to punch through the man (or the thing, Riku couldn’t really tell at this point). He felt chakra strings hit his body but they were cut off on the spot by a Type-B thrown at his feet courtesy of Kakashi. Going through the barrier Riku landed a super punch to the being under the clock and immediately knew that Sasori would live. He had felt the hardwood break under his fist and not flesh and bones. He jumped backward a few feet when he saw something emerge from the back of ‘Sasori’. A smaller person, barely taller than an average fourteen years old.

“I admit, I wasn’t expecting my day to go like this. Meeting Hatake Kakashi the copy-nin and someone able to use the slug princess absurd strength… You will make fine additions to my puppet collection. The next master pieces of my art. The both of you.”

The young teenage boy was naked from the waist up. It was evident to everyone present that he was not human anymore. His innards were replaced by a very long steel cable wrapped around a vertical pole. On his chest where his heart should be was a container to which Riku was sure was the last bit of his flesh to create chakra allowing him not only to control this puppet body but to simply be alive.

“I don’t think capture is possible anymore, Kakashi-san.”

“I don’t think so either. Let’s wrap it up fast.”

“I agree” Sasori said and pulled from his lower back a scroll. “This is my favo-”

Kakashi threw a mix of Type-X and Type-S at their enemy from his vambraces while Riku used lightning laced Kunais targeting its ‘heart’. None stopped there. The cyclops, not being a close quarter fighter, was relegated to Riku’s role, support while Riku had to get closer. Yugao was the front liner but with her out of the fight Riku, a Taijutsu specialist, had to step up.

Riku’s brain was in overdrive. His first priority was to finish the fight as quickly as possible to treat Yugao. He began listing all jutsus and seals that he had at his disposition to do so. He could only think of one and he wasn’t sure it would have the intended effect. Not only that but it required him to actually touch Sasori’s body making himself vulnerable. Deciding on a plan of action during the 1.2 seconds since he channelled lightning into his kunais, Riku created nine shadow clones with the chakra he had left. 7 were dispelled on the spot giving him back 70% of the chakra while the two still there rushed Sasori while making hand seals. Sasori who had been busy protecting himself from the small explosions and with his hands full with his scroll, wasn’t able to dodge the hits from both Riku while summoning a new puppet. Not for one of them and Riku hoped it was enough. When he saw the puppet shrink onto itself and crush the weird container in the nuke-nin chest, he knew they had won. Not missing a bit he quickly went to Yugao, he dispelled the barrier and looked at her wound. The poison was vicious and painful but thankfully not fast acting.

“Yugao-chan, I’m going to have to seal you for a bit. I can’t make an antidote here and-”

“Do it.”

Riku nodded and pulled out a special crate from his BoS and she immediately got inside. When the lid was closed and the barrier activated, Riku sealed it back in his book. Kakashi, who was done checking to see if Sasori was dead for good, witnessed what his teammate just did to the other and nearly shouted at him. He held his tongue because Riku was very good with space time jutsu and because Yugao trusted him and seemed to know that she wouldn’t die from being sealed in a storage seal.

“We need to pick Sasori’s remains for study and for the poisons he had on him.”

“Yugao?”

“Has all the time in the world. I’ll explain it once we’re inside the base.”

Kakashi nodded and began to pick up pieces of wood here and there with Riku’s help. Once everything was packed into a storage seal, they went to meet the Daimyo to tell him the mission was completed successfully. The man had expected nothing less from the Copy-nin of the leaf and the apprentice of the Hokage herself and was very happy with the results. They chose to depart instead of retreating to an inn to rest. When they reached a small cove, Riku set camp with very deadly traps then brought out his closet. Kakashi followed him inside to the infirmary.

“So, I think it’s time you tell me what you did to Yugao and Sasori.”

“Yes.” Riku replied and brought out the crate with ‘sasori’ or what was left of him, out.

“A year or two ago, I developed two jutsus. The first one was to expand organic but inert matter, like wood, the other was to shrink it back.”

“So you shrunk his wooden body and it crushed whatever was inside the container which killed him.”

“Yes.” Riku replied, pulling out the tip of the tail that had wounded his friend. “Sasori still needed flesh to be able to create chakra and move his body so what was probably inside was his heart.”

“Hmm, quite the heartbreak.”

“Quite. As for Yugao… It’s a bit complex to explain, technically her body is frozen in time inside the storage seal.”

“How come?”

“The dimension inside the seal? Some laws of nature are absent there which include time. That's why when you seal someone in there they die because they are not affected by a fundamental law of nature anymore. The crate is a sort of bubble still having time in it.”

“And since it’s inside a barrier, Time is trapped. Yugao is still under the effect of Time, but since Time doesn’t exist outside the barrier the time inside is frozen.”

“... Yes, that’s exactly it. I spent fifteen minutes trying to explain that to the Sandaime. I didn’t think you’d know about barriers and dimensions when I talked to you about space-time at the start of the mission.”

“I learned a bit about that by simply hanging around a couple of sealmasters in my youth.”

“Oh! I’d really like to meet them and discuss the topic.”

“They passed away long ago, I’m afraid.”

“A shame. In any case my expanding and shrinking jutsu, the crates and the knowledge about what’s going on inside a seal is-”

“Heavily restricted under a butt load of Red tape, got it.”

Kakashi let Riku work on making an antidote and wondered how much of a prodigy in fuinjutsu the young man in front of him actually was. He remembered, the day after the second phase of the Chunin exam was over, Hiruzen talked about Anbu’s success rate and more importantly survival rate going up by a wide margin thanks to Riku.

‘If back then he had discovered this Time freeze effect of a storage seal, no wonder the survival rate would go up significantly. And he was barely thirteen at the time. Sensei, Kushina-san, you would have loved talking with him.’

It took Riku a bit less than one hour to be done with his work. He released Yugao from her confinement and immediately dealt with the poison while a shadow clone began to fix her wound. He was so meticulous with the healing that it wouldn’t leave a noticeable scar.

“And done!” exclaimed Riku with mirth in his voice. “Do I have to kiss it to make it feel better?”

“No, thank you.” Yugo replied with a roll of her eyes but a small amused grin on her lips.

“You will feel a bit sluggish and weak for a few days, that’s normal and it will pass.”

“We’re resting for the rest of the day. Afterward, straight back home.” Kakashi announced the plan.

While making lunch, Riku asked what could be improved inside the base. What was missing and needed to be added. Both former Anbu answered a small training area. If the base was to be used as a stakeout, a training area to just practice and keep in shape was necessary. Riku took note of that and spent the rest of the day working on it under their disbelieving eyes.

Because of Yugao’s state, they took a day more to reach Konoha. As always the sight of their home was refreshing and soothing. After checking at the gate, they were in front of Tsunade in no time.

“So?”

“Primary objective was a success, Hokage-sama. Secondary objective is failure.”

“What happened?”

“I got poisoned.” Yugao stated.

“That’s not the main reason, sensei.” Riku quickly defended her from any blame.

“We battled Sasori of the red sands. He was quite the difficult opponent. He had turned almost his whole body into a puppet with probably many tricks up his sleeves and could use other puppets at the same time. His initial attack numbered a hundred of them, Hokage-sama. With our situation and our respective skills, there was no way we could have captured him. The only reason we pulled out a win is because Riku used his… shrinking jutsu on Sasori.”

“The wood crushed the flesh he still needed to have, when it shrunk. Clever.” she immediately realized, understanding Sasori’s weakness from what Kakashi had said.

“We picked him and everything of his up for study, sensei.”

“Riku sealed Yugao to give himself the time to create an antidote without the poison progressing further. Once healed we took a day to rest then went back home.”

“Hm, not the best outcome but the next best thing. Alright, I’ll need a more detailed report in writing. Good job, all of you.”

Being dismissed the team left the office.

“Are you well enough for a completed mission celebration Yugao-chan?”

“I don’t think I can drink anything alcoholic but eating something is fine. Taicho?”

“Eh, why not?”

“Any preferences? And please, not Dango Heaven! Not in the mood for Anko.” Riku quickly added, making Yugao snort.

“Yakiniku Q?”

“Hm, yes. Beef will do. Good choice, Taicho.”

They shushined there and took a table. They were not sitting for five minutes when Riku was forcefully hugged from behind by a young blonde.

“Riku!” Ino said enthusiastically, giving him a kiss on the cheek before releasing him. Yugao had an amused smile on her face at Riku’s fake one.

“Long time no see, Ino. How are you-”

“And who do you think is at fault for that? Huh? Mister “I’m-busy-as-hell-and-can’t-take-a-break’? “ she asked with an unhappy tone and with a face that matched it.

“I… Suppose I can easily lose track of the time when I’m working.”

“Uh-huh.” she grunted in a way that meant ‘No shit!’

Ino wasn’t alone, her whole team was present too. They were celebrating their successful mission too and in consequence both teams ate together. Ino had sat right next to Riku rather closely. That made Riku a bit uncomfortable. She wasn’t doing anything inappropriate but the closeness had created conflicted emotions within him. On one hand he wanted to recoil, his ‘trauma’ of a 8 years old blonde tearing him down verbally was still very much there and kicking. On the other hand, he just wanted to put her sideways in his lap and kissed her with everything he got while letting his hands roam her body in very intimate places. At nearly seventeen, Yamanaka Ino was quite the bombshell and he had no doubt that she would be the most gorgeous woman of her generation along with Hinata. That disparity in feelings was what made him uncomfortable, not Ino herself. As years passed and as she and he matured and wisen up, he had come to really like her perky personality. Still small doses of her was good for his heart or so he believed.

As lunch ended, everyone went their own way. Riku went straight home. He didn’t feel like training or working on seals, he did however think a bit about a mid-to long range jutsu he desperately needed if close quarter combat was not a good idea. The fight against Sasori taught him as much. Not coming with anything, he decided to summon Katsuyu and spend the rest of the day with her, as he hadn’t seen her in a while.