Back inside the giant snake's cave, Ronin opened the large cloth and let everyone out.
Only then did he have the chance to ask what had actually happened.
"We got drawn off," Abachi said. One sentence covered most of it. "At the start it was partly on purpose. You warned us it might go that way."
Ronin nodded.
He had expected an ambush the moment they went after the Scarlet Eyes. Every member of the group had a role and a sealed scroll. Inside each scroll was one of his shadow clones—insurance. If things turned, they could release the clone and either flip the fight or buy an exit.
"The first one who pulled us away was just this woman." Shizuku kicked the still-unconscious Pakunoda. "She isn't much. We didn't need your clone. The three of us took her down on our own."
Ronin looked at Pakunoda without interest.
Her ability was useful in the abstract. It was useless to him. Puppet Technique would let him control her body, but he was not about to let a puppet put a bullet through his own skull just to harvest whatever she had stolen. Having her recite the information piece by piece would be slower than simply using Mind Reading. Killing her was cleaner.
Shizuku kept going. After Blinky knocked Pakunoda out, they had intended to slip back toward Ronin. The noise from the villa made it obvious he was under attack. Pakunoda's presence had already told them who the attackers were. The plan was to return quietly and pick off Troupe members if an opening appeared.
They never made it.
Familiar faces were waiting in the trees.
"Who?" Ronin already had a guess.
"Muhiel, Mashul, and Vanessa," Neon said. It was the first time she had spoken.
That tracked.
Beyond had applied pressure. He had not decided this was a fight to the death. If he had, Marionette and the real threats would have been the ones standing in front of Shizuku's group, not people Ronin actually knew.
"We didn't fight," Abachi continued. "They just boxed us in. Tearing the scrolls would have given us a chance to break out. I judged that even if we reached you, we'd be dead weight. So we held. When Muhiel's group pulled back on their own, I opened a scroll and released your clone. Call it a status report."
"That's what it was." Ronin gave a short nod of approval.
The call had been correct. Three people plus three clones against Muhiel's containment was not a sure thing. Ronin had dealt with the man often enough to know how careful he was. Where Muhiel stood, Golem was never far. The moment a clone became an enemy, the thing hiding in the dark would have hit it. A shadow clone could not use the Mangekyō. No Susanoo. No Amaterasu. No Amenotokotachi. That gap was enough.
Which meant his earlier guess about Xiyou quietly helping them had been wrong. Muhiel's group had never thrown a punch. Xiyou had only recovered his ability after Beyond arrived.
The way Beyond's people had treated Shizuku's group still told him something.
When his gaze settled on Pektaro, the killing intent that had been there earlier was gone.
"Do I take it off you, or do you hand it over?"
Ronin stopped in front of the short figure. A meter twenty at most. Animal features. The backpack was the only thing that mattered. The Scarlet Eyes were almost certainly inside it.
Pektaro had been scanning the cave since the moment he appeared. When his eyes found the two massive trees in the distance, surprise broke across his face.
If he was reading the place right, this was the Mahavi Ruins in the Aiteli Kingdom.
More than two thousand kilometers from the capital of Kakin. Ronin had crossed that distance in an instant.
No wonder Beyond was taking him seriously.
The thought cut off when Ronin's body blocked his view. The taller man looked down at him and the pressure arrived all at once.
Pektaro did not flinch.
Dying here would not be the end. The version of him Ronin had taken was still inside the instance. One life, a stretch of memory, a few dropped items. Manageable. The real calculation was simpler: was the portion of Scarlet Eyes he was supposed to protect worth more than the intelligence he could carry back if he lived?
Ronin watched his eyes.
No fear at all.
That was wrong.
Pektaro was not stupid enough to think Muhiel's restraint meant Ronin would let him walk. The only explanation that fit was that the little man believed he could not be killed—not that Ronin would refuse to try, but that Ronin would fail.
Ronin's eyes narrowed. The seals were already forming.