Kahiko was still alive when I got to him: delirious, spouting nonsense, but alive.
If I was being honest, it wasn't saving the old man that worried me, it was the doom scenario Emina warned us about. And this was Naruto's world; doom scenarios were real. I still remembered that movie where some lunatic living on the moon tried to crash it down with his evolved Byakugan. God, I hoped that wasn't part of this timeline. I didn't want to deal with that bullshit.
I didn't know what this movie's script was, but caution seemed smarter than gambling. The stone's very existence was already a problem I had no real answer to. What would happen once the other hidden villages learned about it? Saving the old man and getting information from him seemed important.
Kumoko had bound the worst of his injuries with bandages, pressing hard against the gash in his stomach.
My clone had started the healing with Mystic Palm, but stopped when she had to defend us from Haido. Still, her intervention might have been what kept the old man alive.
I kneeled by his side, palm glowing. I was nowhere near as proficient as Tsunade, but I might heal him enough to take him to the slug sannin.
The old man didn't want to stay quiet. "We have to destroy the gelel vein," he wheezed. "I beg you, excellent shinobi from Hidden Leaf."
"Shh, stay quiet and let me heal you."
"I don't know how he knew about the stone," Kahiko said, ignoring me. "The royal family fled this land ages ago, and now we can't destroy the vein."
"How do we destroy the vein?"
"The boy's blood," Kahiko said, hand gripping mine. Pained eyes bore into me. "We can use his blood."
"How?"
Kahiko didn't seem to hear me, he kept repeating the same lines over and over.
Kumoko walked to me, tail lashing. "What is he talking about, snake girl?"
I looked from Kahiko to Kumoko. Shrugged. "I don't know," I admitted, pushing more chakra through the mystic palm. "But it might be important. Emina thinks so."
Her tail lashed again. "I found the skunk."
Despite all things happening, I giggled. "Yes, you did. Good job." I'd give her a good ear scritch if my hands weren't busy keeping the old man alive.
She looked from me to Haido. "That ugly trampled all over you."
The giggle died. I sighed. "Yes, he did."
I looked back at the corpse. Nothing had changed in the time since. With the amount of gelel energy inside the room I couldn't tell if the one inside Haido had dissipated, but the body was the same as before: No healing, or changes. There was something nagging at me about Haido, like I had forgotten something. Maybe I should have hacked the body to pieces, but I was afraid of delaying and letting Kahiko die because of that. Still, the barrier was there for a reason.
With things calmed down, I peeked over the beacon. Ino was back in her body. Tsunade was near her, and both were looking at the access shaft that led here.
I sighed again, this time in relief. Best Girl Ino was safe and now with the sannin. While I looked, they jumped down the shaft.
"Ino is on her way."
Kumoko grunted, tail lashing.
The following minutes passed with little conversation aside from Kahiko's increasingly strange requests.
I tried to prod him for information about this potential doom and how to stop it, but he kept repeating something about blood, and that he failed, and that we had to destroy the mine, and that we couldn't destroy the mine. Frustrating that he didn't say a peep how to actually destroy the mines, and how to get to it. I knew the mines were around here somewhere, the energy gave it away, but not exactly sure where yet.
He fell silent at some point, and when I looked, he was unconscious.
"Hinata-chan!" Ino called me as soon as she saw me.
I smiled. I couldn't feel her chakra while she was still inside the access shaft, but I still knew where she was based on the beacon. Soon after Ino's, it was Tsunade's chakra. Her blaze wasn't as big as it had been early in the day, but it still was a lot of chakra for a single person.
Ino ran until she was by my side. "Are you alright?"
I nodded. "Ino-chan."
Ino kneeled by my side, placing both her hands on top of Kahiko's chest. Soon after, they started to glow.
"They are teaching you brats this jutsu now?" Tsunade asked as a way of conversation.
I shrugged. "I bugged Shisui until he said I could learn, then I dragged Ino with me."
Tsunade hadn't approached the bloody mess Kahiko was in. She inspected the room instead of helping. Well, I couldn't blame her. I'd probably do the same if I couldn't deal with blood.
"So, what is going on?" Tsunade asked after a while.
"I'm not entirely sure," I hedged.
Tsunade grunted. She was at my perimeter barrier. "Who is this?"
"Haido," I said, mulling over what I knew in my head. "He's the leader of those outside. I think he's from another continent."
"Did you learn what he wanted?"
I had some ideas. Karin had gone near catatonic once she got closer to this place, and once I was inside, I could also sense what she did from kilometers away. I was sure there was something around the walls blocking perception from around here, somehow. The biggest clue was that I couldn't sense Ino and Tsunade even though they were inside my range in the shaft. Only after they entered the room could I sense their chakra.
But could I trust Tsunade with the information? If Kahiko's delirium meant anything, we couldn't destroy the mine, and I didn't want the stone being used by shinobi. Haido's people had no shinobi training, and the stone made them strong enough to contend on par with chunin, at least. They were at a disadvantage because, throughout all this, it felt like they were not accustomed to fighting other people with power, just normal people.
If this got out, the fourth shinobi war wouldn't be Akatsuki's fault. But I didn't think there was anything I could do to prevent the information from getting out. Tsunade already knew about this place. There were a lot of Suna shinobis outside. The secret would come out, eventually.
"Kahiko said this is the mine for the stone. Haido thought the same." I looked around. Tsunade was now walking the length of the seals inscribed on the ground. "We should destroy the mines, if we can."
Ino looked up from her work. Her brows furrowed. "Hinata-chan?"
"Why do you think that?"
"If there is really a mine of those stones here, I don't want to imagine what the other villages will do when they learn about it."
I left the implication for them to decide. I pulled my hands away from Kahiko's chest. The injury hadn't fully healed, but I didn't think he was in immediate danger.
I got up on my feet, looked around. "We could wake Kahiko up and ask him about destroying the mine."
Kumoko wasn't near me anymore. I had stopped paying attention to her once Ino arrived. The she-devil was near Temujin's corpse, sniffing his clothes and pacing around his body.
"Kumoko?" I asked, walking closer.
She grunted.
"What is it?"
"He smells funny."
"Funny how?"
"Like the dirt he was made from wasn't the same dirt from here."
I nodded at her comparison. It made sense.
"He's still alive," Tsunade said before I could say anything else.
I turned around. Tsunade was by the perimeter barrier again, looking at Haido.
"He's alive," she said again.
That shouldn't be possible. He had no pulse and no stone. I made sure of it. I approached, and Ino followed.
"He had no pulse last time I checked, and I made sure to remove the source of his regeneration."
Tsunade looked away from the maybe-corpse to me.
"I only found one stone inside his body, but this place," I said, gesturing around me, "messes with my perception. Perhaps there's ano–"
Then everything happened at once. Haido's face snapped up, looking at me. Big red eyes glowing, mouth in a snarl. He pointed his right hand straight at me, and from this distance, I could see the unmistakable glow of a stone there. He blasted the barrier.
Ino shouted and pushed me away. "Lookout!"
Time slowed down to a crawl, like each frame playing at an agonizingly slow speed.
The ground shook, stone shattered. Red spikes burst from the ground beneath us.
Tsunade contorted, avoiding most of the red spike that burst beneath her. It hadn't been enough. The spike punctured through her thigh, growing up and pinning the woman in place.
A second spike had burst from where I had been. Ino shoving me away saved me from the injury, but put her in danger's path.
I saw the spike piercing through Ino's gut, then popping on the other side, carrying her up.
Amid all that, the barrier broke. Haido's blast would have taken my head and chest off hadn't Ino pushed me away, but now, it just clipped my sides, leaving a hole in my stomach.
The blast continued past me until it hit the far wall. The force of the blast was enough to blow a hole, and on the other side of the broken wall, the unmistakable glow of the gelel stone: the huge vein they were looking for.
With the wall broken, now I could see the stone: majestic, and brimming with energy.
The spikes retreated, turning into red balls again, floating behind Haido's back.
Tsunade fell, but instead of healing herself, she just kept staring at her own bloody hands and legs, trembling.
Ino's body hit the ground with a wet thump. She let a pained whimper.
Haido looked even more monstrous than before. Bigger, more muscular, skin now looked like iron instead of leather. The burn marks disappeared in seconds.
"I'm immortal," he gloated, floating past me and toward the gelel vein. "I'm a god."
He didn't even attack again. Left me bleeding on the ground like I wasn't worth his consideration.
How was he alive? I was sure there was only one stone. My eyes hovered about, until it landed on the broken sword. Haido had fallen on top of it. The cerulean gem on the pommel was missing.
Shit.
I crawled to Ino. My body wasn't answering like I wanted it to. I couldn't get up. I knew I was in pain; I think there was a hole in me, but it was nothing compared to the pain of seeing Ino injured. I promised I would keep her safe.
Ino's shove hadn't pushed me that far from her. When I got to her, an eternity later, Ino was looking at the ceiling.
Tears fell from her eyes, but she didn't cry out. Instead, crystalline blue orbs focused on me. She smiled. Blood poured out of her mouth. She extended one hand toward me. Blood also covered her hand.
"Hinata-chan, I'm glad you're okay." she gurgled.
"Shh," I said, my voice alien to my ears. "It's okay."
I looked where the spike had pierced through Ino. The injury was big enough that I could fit my arm through. I placed my hands over it. Should I apply pressure? Would that even work? I pushed my chakra, trying as much as I could to stem the bleeding with mystic palm.
Ino whimpered.
I knew it wouldn't be enough. I dug into my pouch for anything, anything at all. My fingers closed around the stones: Haido's and the Wolfwoman's. I pulled them out and pressed them against Ino's wound, praying they might help. It didn't. Ino only cried out in pain.
"I'm sorry," she rasped out. More blood poured out of her mouth.
"Shh, you're going to be okay," I whispered back, trying to push chakra inside the stones and then into Ino, in a desperate attempt to make them bond with Ino, but nothing worked.
Her hand caressed my face. "I wanted to kiss you again."
My voice took on a keening edge I didn't like. "I'll heal you, then you can kiss me as much as you want."
"I think I…"
"Ino-chan, stay with me, please." I whimpered. The mystic palm wasn't enough. I couldn't keep Ino alive, but Tsunade could.
"I…"
"Tsunade can help."
I ignored my pain. My arms felt like they belonged to someone else. I couldn't move properly, but that wasn't news, was it? I didn't need my body to control my body.
I pushed my threads out, wrapping them about my limbs and puppeteering myself. As gently as I could, I picked Ino up in a princess carry. Her face was closer to mine. Her hand found my face again. Gently, she pushed until I was looking into her eyes again.
"I…" she started, but never finished.
Ino's hand fell from my face, and her body turned limp.
That was fine. She was just unconscious. Tsunade would help. I knew she could.
I couldn't say precisely what happened next. Somehow, I was by Tsunade's side, still cradling Ino. I could hear my voice, but I didn't remember saying anything.
"Please, Tsunade-sama, please."
The slug princess's eyes were vacant. She kept looking at all the blood on me, Ino, and herself, tears falling from her eyes.
"She's gone, snake-girl."
I turned, looking at Kumoko.
Her ears were flat against her head, and her tail curled, mostly hidden beneath her. "She's gone."
I looked again around me, like I had just woken up from a nightmare.
There was a trail of blood from where I had carried Ino from. I wasn't any better. There was a hole in my side, blood flowed from there. I was only standing because I wasn't using my body, but threads.
I looked again at Tsunade. She wasn't in any state of mind to help.
I looked at Kumoko. She didn't meet my gaze.
I looked at Ino. Her face wasn't peaceful. It had slacked from what was obvious pain and fear.
Something inside my head snapped. My whole body burned, but worse were my eyes. Like someone took a bucket of sawdust and stuffed it inside my eyes while someone else dragged nails on a chalkboard.
It ended as soon as it started, and when it did, I knew what I had to do. A lot of things made sense now. It felt like before I was trying to read the pages of a book smudged with black ink, but I now had brand new pages with clear instructions instead of trying to decipher the smudged ones.
Gently, I placed Ino down, and put the stones I was still pressing against her belly into my pouch.
Turned toward where Haido had gone through.
"Kumoko," I said, my voice firm. I didn't recognize it.
"She's gone, snake girl," Kumoko said again.
I ignored her. Ino was just sleeping. She would wake up soon enough, one way or another.
"I'm fulfilling my end of the bargain."
Kumoko's head snapped toward me.
This would hurt, but there was no other way. My threads dug into my head, modifying the seals in and around my eyes.
Then, I plucked the snake eye out.