Takeshi's gaze settled on Kakashi. "Meow~ Besides Rin, who here knows Seal Release?"
He already knew the answer, or at least, he remembered Kakashi knowing fuinjutsu in anime. But the Kakashi of now just stayed quiet, a flicker of irritation crossing his mind.
'He has already asked me that before,' Kakashi thought. 'Wasn't my silence answer enough?'
He had been studying fuinjutsu lately, but Seal Release was still just out of his reach. His chakra control simply wasn't as precise as Rin's.
'This jerk,' he concluded, 'is just trying to get under my skin.'
"Alright, I'm finished," Rin said, pulling her hands back as the green glow of her chakra faded from Minato's side.
Minato's poisoning hadn't been life-threatening on its own, but Chiyo's venom was so potent that it needed to be dealt with immediately. Performing the procedure out here, on the run, had made things much more difficult. In a proper operating room, she could have finished in half the time.
"Thank you, Rin," Minato said. A wave of weakness washed over him now that the treatment was done, but he knew a few moments of rest would be enough to recover. After some gentle insistence, Obito finally stopped supporting him, letting him walk on his own.
The team continued on at a steady pace. Rin jogged alongside Takeshi, pulling out two blank scrolls. "Takeshi, why didn't you want me to use the shadow clones from the start?" she asked.
"Meow~ If we'd used them right away, they wouldn't have bothered chasing us," he replied, a hint of amusement in his voice. 'If you're going to set a trap, you have to do it right. Give them a little hope first, make them think they have a chance. The outcome will be the same, but this way is much more satisfying...'
The black cat glanced back over his shoulder.
'They're close,' he sensed. 'And it feels like they have someone strong with them.' He could detect a chakra signature on par with Chiyo's. There weren't many shinobi of that caliber in Sunagakure.
"It might be Ebizo," Minato said, his voice still a bit strained. "He and Chiyo would have a way to contact each other."
"Then what's the plan?" Obito asked.
'Ebizo? Isn't that her little brother?!' Guy thought, his eyes widening in panic. He glanced at the old woman slung over his shoulder. What would Ebizo do if he saw him running around with Chiyo like this? The thought sent a jolt of panic through him, and he pushed himself to run even faster.
"We fight," Takeshi said, dropping a self-detonating rat onto the path behind them.
Kakashi had already stopped setting traps. With Ebizo on their tail, their pursuers were moving faster now, and they would be on top of them in moments. Takeshi's chakra was only back to sixty percent, but if a fight was coming, then a fight was coming.
"Kakashi, Genma, and Obito, you three, stay with me."
"Yes, sir!" they answered in unison.
After running a little further, Takeshi motioned for Rin to unseal the scrolls. As they passed through a mountain, the sound of footsteps grew louder behind them. The Suna shinobi had caught up.
Rin quickly formed the hand signs, and with a puff of smoke, shadow clones of Minato and Takeshi appeared, ready for the ambush.
'Takeshi's orders made sense,' Rin thought as she continued running ahead. 'Kakashi, Genma, Obito... they're all faster than me. This is an escape, not an all-out battle. Staying behind would only slow everyone down.'
A few seconds later, Ebizo and his squad burst into the clearing.
"Hand over my sister," he demanded, his face ashen even in the dim light filtering through the trees.
'How had this happened?' Ebizo wondered desperately. 'Orochimaru wasn't supposed to make a move tonight. In a single day, the entire situation has fallen apart.'
"Meow, you want her?" a voice echoed from the trees. "Come and get her!"
One by one, black cats emerged from the surrounding forest. They were all different sizes, like a strange, mismatched family, their eyes glowing faintly in the moonlight.
'Clones,' Ebizo realized, his breathing faltered for a moment. He could tell they were all solid, elemental or shadow clones. Either way, they would be a nightmare to deal with, especially since their real opponent had mastered the Flying Thunder God and he was in hurry to rescue his sister.
"Ebizo of Sunagakure," the cats voices overlapped, a chaotic chorus that made the dark forest feel even more unsettling. "I know your village values integrity, so I won't ask you to surrender. But don't think you can rescue Chiyo. Next time, it might be your Kazekage we come for. And after that, it will be you."
Ebizo began forming hand signs in secret. Retreat? Impossible. He could never show his face in the village again if he left his sister here.
Before he could finish the jutsu, a strange sound cut through the air.
*Squeak squeak squeak~*
A violent surge of chakra followed from behind his men. Ebizo didn't know what it was, but he knew they had to move.
"Scatter!" he yelled.
A deafening boom ripped through the mountain, and a massive explosion gouged a crater in the earth. The jonin scattered in time, but the chunin and genin weren't so lucky. They were simply gone, vaporized in the blast.
But that was only the beginning. A storm of senbon rained down from the trees, followed by waves of fire and lightning. Takeshi had warned them to avoid close combat. If not for that, Kakashi would have already drawn his blades and charged straight into the fray.
Amid the chaos, the black cat clones went on the attack, their immunity to poison making them perfect weapons.
Ebizo was already forming the hand signs for a Wind Release Jutsu, but he had to abort mid-sequence, shifting to an Earth Release Jutsu to throw up a wall against the onslaught. While he was occupied, Kakashi and the others moved swiftly, assassinating the remaining enemy jonin.
At the same time, Minato and Takeshi's shadow clones closed in on their target. Ebizo felt a flicker of the same shock Chiyo must have felt, a primal urge to flee. But he quickly calmed himself, recognizing they were only clones, limited in strength and ability. He sidestepped their initial attack with ease, then launched a volley of kunai and shuriken at Minato's clone while retreating.
But as the weapons flew, he saw something was wrong. There was an extra one there. 'Flying Thunder God!' he understood, immediately trying to form a Earth Clone to escape.
It was too late.
The next second, the real Takeshi appeared. In a single, fluid motion, he and his clones swept their tails out, a devastating attack that sent shinobi flying. Not even Ebizo could block it. He was violently knocked out of the ground just as he'd begun to dive into it. Takeshi's tail coiled around him like a rope, and just like that, Ebizo was dropped at Minato's feet.
The Minato clone, who had been standing by thoughtfully, finally moved, forming hand signs to apply a fuinjutsu to their new captive. As he worked, a strange thought crossed his mind.
'Why do I feel like I'm just the designated fuinjutsu specialist on this team?' he mused. 'I have a nagging suspicion that if Takeshi ever bothered to learn fuinjutsu properly, I would still be stuck like this performing sealing for the missions.'
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