Escape

I watched from the top of the cabinet as Yagura, the mizukage of kirigakure, studied Kyoko intently, his eyes curious and cold, almost clinical in the way he studied her every movement. I wanted to help her, but I knew that no matter what I did I wouldn't be able to change anything, so, I watched, knowing that trying to crawl deeper into the shadows would just make me move, and any kind of movement could get me killed now.

"Do you not care to talk?" he asked.

"h-how did you know I was here" she asked, her voice trembling in fear.

"Simple, really, but I think I would prefer to wait for your farther to arrive, after all, no one likes to repeat themselves, and one of the things I have in mind can really only be done once" he said with a easy smile as he walked over to the armchair and sat down, patiently waiting for the daimyo to arrive, leaving the exit wide open. Of course, everyone in the room knew that it was a trap, and that the exit may as well have been a solid iron wall for all the possibilities for escape it offered.

Minutes passed in tense silence, like there was a sleeping tailed beast in the room, before finally, the daimyo arrived, looking unconcerned until he saw the mizukage waiting for him in his office with his daughter.

"Yagura, it was a true honor to have you attend my humble celebration, I am curious as to why you want to see me, and why you seem to have brought my daughter with you" the daimyo said, smiling at Yagura

"Oh no, please, it was nothing, I was honored to be invited, now normally I would not be able to attend, you know how busy I am, but circumstances led me to conclude that a visit here might be worth my time" Yagura said, a pleasant smile still on his lips.

"Really? well if you want to, I would appreciate it if you told me what made attending worth your time, but to be quite honest I would appreciate knowing why my daughter is here more. I'm sure you have your reasons, of course, but curiosity has always pulled at my thoughts" the daimyo said, sweat starting to form on his forehead as he started to fidget.

"The answer to both those questions actually happen to be one and the same, of course, it is a rather long answer" - Yagura said as he slowly rose from the armchair and sat behind the desk. - "so why not sit down, it will allow us to speak with neither of us growing weary"

"Yes, that is a good idea" the daimyo said as he settled into the armchair.

"You see, it all started when a merchant sent me a letter just hours ago, telling me a story about how Konoha threatened him into allowing a child to masquerade as his child. We believed him since if he was lying, he would gain nothing other than the death of his child, but you see, we were also curious about a couple of things. Like whether or not he had any accomplices. So, we set a bit of a trap by keeping your door unprotected and loosening how many guards were posted, allowing any halfway decent shinobi to get in easily, before placing a seal on the drawers in your desk, to warn us if someone opened them. Can you guess who we found rifling through your documents when we came here?" Yagura asked, his expression remaining locked in a pleasant mask.

The daimyo looked at his daughter with a pained expression, before turning back to his conversation. "Kyoko... but how does this confirm that she is a spy, she could just be curious about my work" he said, desperation leaking into his voice.

"She has been close friends with the spy for over a year now, I believe that the evidence is substantial enough to deem her a traitor by now, all that is left is deciding an appropriate punishment" was all he said.

"I- I can keep her confined to our private wing of the palace until the war is over, what do you think?" the daimyo proposed.

"No, no, you seem to have misunderstood something crucial, this is not a negotiation but more of a, shall we say, demonstration, yes, I think that works quite well, and even if I am close to succeeding at ridding our land from the bloodline filth which has been infecting it for so long. It is still necessary to keep it a secret until the war is over and we have built our forces back up to the greatness they once had. And as such, it is crucial for me to demonstrate why it is so important that you discourage anyone from even thinking about why there are fewer shinobi in the capital, even if you have to create a couple of reasons" Yagura said, his earlier pleasantness slowly melting away like dew before the scorching sun as he carried on, before finally the only thing left was a blood-soaked monster where a man once stood.

"and" - the daimyo swallowed before trying to speak again - "and how do you intend to demonstrate that?"

"it's really quite simple" Yagura said.

Then, he took a kunai with his hand and with a casual flick of his wrist, he made it fly into Kyoko's chest, where it landed with a wet thud, the sound of her flesh splitting under the knifes razor edge being heard in the dead silence of the room. Then she screamed. a horrific, pain-filled wail that made guilt rip through me, and as the minutes went by, her screams slowly became a gurgle as blood filled her lungs. I was only able to watch as the poll of blood slowly spread from her, and she stopped screaming. I found myself almost happy that the screams were over.

"Do be more careful in the future, after all, if you let any more of your children run around with spies, they might just be killed. Of course, Kyoko here was tricked and then killed by her spy friend, after he couldn't find what he wanted. You remember it like that as well, don't you?" Yagura said, his pleasant tone back.

"yes" the daimyo said, as he slowly walked to the corpse of his daughter, before kneeling in her blood.

"Good, now, I've put the palace inside a ring of my best shinobi, we will be making sure that the spy does not escape, we have already taken care of all his servants. We even found quite the collection of fuinjutsu devices in there, they were honestly remarkable, I think we will need to capture this young spy, there is no telling how useful he could be with the right motivation. Honestly, what in the world was Konoha thinking when they sent a genius like him to us, and in such a useful field to boot, well, either way, it is a great opportunity for us" Yagura said conversationally, ignoring the grieving farther.

Half an hour passed, but the daimyo made no move to leave, he just sat over his daughter's corpse in silence. I knew that I had to move as soon as possible, or else I would get overwhelmed by her death, so I jumped down from the cabinet and prepared to knock him unconscious and tie him up, before making my escape.

"You must be the friend she told me about, or spy, I assume" he said in a hoarse croak.

"I am" I said.

"There is a secret exit nearby, it was made as a last resort, if even our hidden village turned against us, as such, only the current daimyo at any given time knows of it. Your escape would hurt Yagura. I'll show you to the exit" he said, before slowly getting up, and walking out of the room.

I followed after him, glancing over my shoulder to look at her one last time, then I left.

He led me to a completely random wall, a wall with no suspicious markings or anything of the sort, then he pressed a seemingly random spot on the wall, making part of the wall swing open and revealing a hole. The hole led into an endless expanse of darkness, with a pole in the center going from the ceiling and presumably down to the floor of the escape tunnel.

"Thank you" I said.

"don't thank me, you killed my daughter as well, I just hate Yagura more" he said, then he closed the secret door, leaving me alone in the dark.

"Well, only one way to go from here" I said, before grabbing hold of the pole and wrapping my legs around it, then started to slide down, eventually coming to a small corridor lit by a soft blue light from a stream going through the tunnel. It must be connected to the glowing gardens somehow.

I walked through the narrow tunnel, the stream in the middle lighting my path, with the glowing underwater plants we studied together, swaying slowly from side to side in the stream. It would take some time for me to find the exit, leaving me plenty of time to think, of course, thinking about what happened was the exact thing I wanted to avoid more than anything. But sadly, my own mind betrayed me, forcing me to replay what happened over and over, desperately searching to make sure I did the best I could with the information I had, trying to prove to myself that it wasn't my fault, that there was nothing I could have done differently. Until my mind came up with one thought. what if I hadn't angered Gato the day I met him? What if I just accepted that even if he was horrible, there was nothing I could do, and focused on the mission instead of taunting the only person who knew my secret. Finally, I came to the only logical conclusion. I might as well have killed her myself. After roaming for a long time with only my thoughts for company I found an exit, well, something which loosely looked like an exit, honestly, it was just a small hole in the wall near the floor, leading into an abandoned part of the sewers. I squeezed my way through the hole and started to roam the sewers until I realized that I had no way of actually navigating down here and resigning myself to going up into the streets of the city again, even if there was a larger risk of me getting hunted down by the Kiri shinobi.

I carefully peeked into the lantern-lit city, looking around before realizing that the streets were completely empty, so I crawled into the light of the city, wary of any noise which might indicate that I had been seen. I was only greeted by the strange, empty silence of a place that was supposed to be filled with life.

I threw my collar into the sewers, trying to seem like an idiot who didn't understand the clear lockdown of the city, or maybe a crazy man, based on my outfit. After orienting myself, I started walking, taking alleyways and side streets when possible, fitting in perfectly with the homeless people of the city as I slowly made my way to the docks.

When I finally arrived, I looked around the docks, there was a practically endless number of wooden walkways, each going far into the city bay, the long logs which made up the supporting pillars of the walkways going a meter up beyond the plank floors, making a perfect spot to tether your boat. I suddenly remembered that I didn't have a boat, nor did I know how to sail a boat even if I stole one. I guess I'll have to be a fast learner.

I heard a whizzing noise and started looking around for the source, then I realized that my kunai made the same noise when they flew through the air. My eyes widened in panic, and I drooped into a roll towards the nearest wooden pillar, and immediately after I left the spot I had just been standing in, kunai slammed into the planks, sticking in them while vibrating quietly. I peeked out and saw a man with a forehead protector standing a bit away, already preparing a new salvo of kunai to throw at me. I narrowed my eyes, before running from my cover, quickly grabbing five kunai from the ground before running further along the walkway we were standing on, sprinting in erratic patterns to avoid the kunai flying after me, before realizing that he was faster than me.

I jumped onto one of the ships when I was close to the end of the walkway, hiding behind the railing before calling out. "Would you mind if I asked you a question? Just to sate my curiosity, really, but how did you find me?"

Just as I was about to give up on conversation the voice of a young man reached my ears "I'm a sensor, some of us weaker sensors were planted throughout the city, in case you broke the mizukage's ring" he said, his voice coming from maybe twenty meters away.

"How did you know it was me?" I said, taking a kunai in each hand.

"You were a large chakra signature that suddenly appeared, now stop trying to humanize yourself to me, I won't make the same mistake as the princess" he said, this time sounding like he was fifteen meters away, giving me a rough estimate on his speed when he isn't actively chasing me.

I waited a couple of seconds until he should be just moments from reaching me "one last question" - I said, tensing my muscles - "how do you like the taste of steel" I sprang up, seeing that he was just two meters away before throwing three of my kunai, one for the throat with one hand, and one for each thigh with the other. He desperately caught the one I sent at his throat and left thigh but had to allow the third kunai to be driven into his right thigh, making my bid to slow him down a success.

"Thank god you didn't die from that, for a moment I was honestly worried that 'how do you like the taste of steel' would be my first one-liner" I said, before turning and running from ship to ship, taking advantage of his injury and the fact that he had to stop me to bleed him a bit before confronting him.

The man followed, still throwing kunai after me, though he ran at a much-reduced speed until he finally got lucky and a searing pain erupted in my calf. He hit me just as I was about to set off from one of the wooden pillars, making me fall towards the water for a second before I frantically grabbed the rope tied between the pillar and the ship with one hand, leaving me to dangle over the water.

He staggered up next to the pillar, forming a series of hand seals before water lifted from the bay into a thin, spinning disk, with a razor edge. It was too wide for me to dodge while hanging from the rope.

"Goodbye, kid, and good luck in your next life" he said, as he sent the spinning razor-edged disk towards me before he turned to leave.

I looked at the disk approaching me, somehow knowing with full certainty that it would slice me in half with the same ease I sliced a tomato. My eyes hardened with determination and in a desperate attempt to avoid the disk racing towards me, I grabbed one of my kunai and cut the rope I was hanging on, making me swing out of the way and crash into the side of the ship. I quickly grabbed two of my senbon of shredding and threw them at his turned back, being rewarded with a scream of pain and a wet splat as he fell on the wooden walkway, soon I saw the blood streaming through the planks. Clearly, they worked for their intended purpose.

I slowly heaved myself up the rope, hauling myself onto the deck of the ship, and looked back at the result of my work. What I saw made me throw up over the railing immediately.

The man's corpse was lying on the walkway, what used to be his back turned to the night sky. The shredded ribbons of flesh and muscle formed a horrific hole in his torso, like a pot with a curtain made of fringes along the inside. Blood was quickly streaming from the wound, down through the planks and into the waters below.

I took a senbon and looked down at the beautifully made weapon, remembering the days of effort to carve out the tens, if not hundreds, of tiny whirlpools all over it, the feat only being possible due to my superhuman stats. Then I identified it.

[senbon of shredding

Tier: B

A senbon which was inscribed to make the normally very precise weapon into a weapon where every hit is a critical hit.

Shots out a vine with hooks for thorns made out of solid chakra from each whirlpool along the senbon, before pulling the vines back in with critical effect.]

I made this, I made this- this thing! I looked at my hands in disgust, before going onto the walkway and reaching inside the corpse with a shaking hand and dragging out my creations, feeling the many shreds of flesh sliding off my hand as I pulled back.

"Is- is that you? Kid?" I heard a voice come from the ship behind me and turned to see someone I last saw over a year ago, before looking at the ship and realizing that it was the same ship I came to the land of water with.

"It is indeed captain, now how would you feel about smuggling me with you right now if it lets you screw over Gato?" I said with a small, tired, and very fake smile.

"Come on board, I'll wake the boys and tell them we're heading out" the captain said with a resolute expression.

The crew left me mostly alone after helping me get bandaged up, which I appreciated, and left me to stare back at the capitol even hours after it was gone, thinking about everything that had happened.

And so, I sailed away, leaving behind only the corpse of a friend I would never see again.