'That was easier than I expected.' Aiko stared blankly at the corpse. Tentatively, she came close enough to nudge at it with a foot- it didn't react.
'What did I expect?' She shook her head. 'Of course nothing can survive being cut in half. It just seems like that was too easy. I mean, nothing ever goes that well for me.'
Still. Easy or not, it was creepy. There was little gore. At least she'd been right about his lack of humanity- an animal would be gushing blood. Zetsu's plantlike cells kept everything that hadn't been exactly in the way in place. The splatter of liquid in between the two pieces of the corpse appeared to be vaguely sticky water instead of blood. She didn't realize that she'd neatly split Zetsu in half- the line of his light and dark skin (which was she was surprised to see continued down his body) was preserved perfectly.
'Maybe I really did see him move at the last moment?' But no. If Zetsu had seen the blow coming, he would have avoided it, not made sure it was symmetrical. Aiko shook off the thought, smiling in awe of her daring. Damn. Maybe she really could do this.
She took a moment to glance over her shoulder at the jinchuuriki who was still out cold on floor. Maybe she should untie him before she tried to revive Fuu?
Aiko grimaced. On one hand, she didn't want him to wake up and think she was an enemy. Untying him would be a good hint that she was his tentative ally. On the other hand, he might wake up panicked and attack her while she was distracted with Fuu. Wouldn't that be rich?
"Well, I should get him out of here as soon as possible," she decided. He couldn't be in great shape after being tied up and dragged across three countries- his chances of escape were already low, so he really should get mobile. Aiko wasn't that invested in his survival- her interest was more in thwarting the particularly cruel death that Obito had planned for him because she sort of felt responsible. If he made it back to his village, more power to him- but she wasn't going to hold his hand and like, sing inspirational music to motivate him.
So she knelt, cut through the wire holding his wrists together, and then realized that she had absolutely no knowledge of field medicine or how to determine if he would wake up. All she really knew how to do was hit things.
'Play to my strengths, I guess?'
So she slapped him -pretty hard. Red bloomed on his pale cheek nearly instantly. Aiko held her breath when he stiffened, but he didn't wake up. Dubiously, she tilted her head. "Should I hit him again?"
Yes. Hitting was always the answer. She lifted her hand.
He groaned the second time. Encouraged by the success she'd been having with violence, Aiko wrapped her hands around his shoulders and shook him a little bit.
"Wake up!" she ordered, leaning into his personal space. "This is a shit place to take your nap."
'Ew, he smells like sweaty feet. Suddenly glad I didn't have to stand in an enclosed space with Suigetsu. Does he just have no concept of personal hygiene? Poor Kakuzu.'
One dark eye creaked open with what seemed like monumental effort.
Huh.
'I am the best medical professional, clearly. Just call me nurse.'
Aiko whistled lowly through her teeth, cheerfully pulling him up into a seated position. "I didn't think that would work," she admitted easily, patting the side of his head. "Anyway, do you really want to lie around all day? Go home or something. I've got stuff to do." She rearranged her grip to get his arm around her neck and hefted him up, mildly surprised when he barely assisted her and the bulk of his weight was on her shoulder. She staggered- he was svelte, but she wasn't that physically strong, even for her petite build.
The man's head lolled to the side, the tilted angle putting it nearly on her level in a way that had to be hard on his neck. He glared at her through what looked like a massive headache, eyes not quite tracking her movement. Maybe he wasn't ready to be up yet.
"Wait," he croaked, all but pouting. "You're not Mei-chan at all."
Aiko felt a crease form between her eyebrows. "No," she agreed, "Not even a little."
'He's definitely not ready to be conscious, certainly not ready to be vertical. That's annoying. I don't have all day to spend babysitting him.'
He leaned forward, concentrating on her face. After a long moment, the confusion was replaced with shocked disgust. "You. You again. You haven't changed at all," he accused, gaze drifting, even though his expression remained intense. "Still violent and annoyingly flippant. It does you no credit."
Okay then, crazy. Now he was mistaking her for someone else. Maybe she should have let him think she was Mei-chan. He might have been more cooperative for someone he'd liked.
Aiko rolled her eyes, already so done with this act of benevolence. "You probably haven't gotten any smarter," she sniped, prodding him in the rib with an elbow.
"I shouldn't be surprised that we keep meeting like this," the jinchuuriki ruminated darkly, staring several inches to the left of her face.
'God, he's dramatic. Also, meeting like what? How many times have you been kidnapped by Kakuzu and his junior varsity backup?'
"Oh cheer up," Aiko soothed, giving an impatient glance towards the cave opening that led to freedom. "I never want to see you again either. Actually, I don't know who you are."
There was a shocked silence. Her new friend jerked his supporting arm away from her with effort. Without looking away from what he seemed to think was her face, the poor man straightened the gaping material of his -very nice and rather expensive, she noted- robe. Bizarrely, he didn't pull it shut. So, um. All the chest on display was purposeful, then?
'Oh, he's vain,' she realized. In retrospect that should have been obvious. His clothes were decoration, not armor. She'd probably hurt his feelings.
"My name is Utakata," he said stiffly.
Yepp, definitely a butthurt pretty-boy. Well, whatever. Nuts to him. Maybe she could use this to shock him into waking up properly and complying.
"That's nice. Come on, stand," she ordered, letting go of his shoulder and letting him stand on his own. He wobbled and braced himself with a hand on the rock wall, glaring down at her over a perfectly formed nose. She made a face at his physical weakness. That could be a problem. She wasn't going to help him leave. Her goodwill only went so far.
Well, being mean had been working pretty well so far.
"What, did you break a nail? Come on man, stand up and get out of here. I don't want to have to look at your face." Aiko shoved him gently, trying to rile him up. Adrenaline was going to be his friend here. He'd surely understand why she'd trash-talked him when he was less woozy and out of danger.
He made a small, infuriated sound. Then he teetered to the side and lost his balance, ending up sprawled on his rear and blinking in faint surprise.
'…New plan. Maybe Fuu will be willing to help him out. Actually, maybe sending the two of them off together will increase both of their odds of survival until they get picked up a sand patrol team.'
She gave up on him for now, and shrugged, stepping away back towards Zetsu. "Stay if you want, I suppose. It's not a good idea, but if you really need to take a moment, there is a favor you could do me in exchange for saving your skinny hide."
"Favor?" his voice rose up warily from behind her.
Aiko nodded absently, wrinkling her nose at the slightly acidic smell that Zetsu's remains gave off. Experimentally, she pulled at a leaf above the dark half- it tore easily, like any plant. She didn't see the single finger twitch against the ground, hidden as it was under the scraps of ruined cloak. "Yeah, would you escort a lady friend of mine out of here? I think it's best that you two stay away from me."
Plus she didn't know that Fuu would be particularly happy to see her, on account of the whole 'leading her to her death' thing. Some people were so petty.
'If Obito was right, summoning the god of death requires a considerably larger blood sacrifice than summoning an animal.' Aiko grimaced, glancing down at her scarred thumb. Biting a little bit of flesh off might not do it this time. 'At least I heal quickly. I should be fine,' she assured herself, pulling a kunai off her thigh and dragging it across her left palm. A line of blood bloomed instantly, glossy in the dim light. She squeezed her hand shut, letting the forced muscle contraction speed bleeding until she had a respectable offering pooled on the rocks. Utakata was saying something but she wasn't listening, too busy twisting her hands into a seal.
She tried her best not to think of the liquid seeping through the creases in her fingers where her twisted hands touched, and flicked through a short sequence. Aiko raised the amount of chakra she fed to the technique steadily until it twisted out of her control.
Her first glimpse of the god of death was a massive head clad in tan. It pushed its way up out of the ground without disturbing the earth at all, revealing a black cloth crown and then a red frilled collar-
Ew.
The god of hell was hella ugly, with teeth like pointed tombstones and massive veins on a purpled tongue that stank of graverot- and- and skin the faint blue of an oxygen deprived corpse. Aiko recoiled, even before she registered that the god wasn't going to emerge any further and that the purple flames it was wreathed in weren't hot at all.
'Its mouth is big enough that I could walk right in,' she thought, dazed. Not that she wanted to of course, but it was the sort of thing she couldn't help but notice when the death god's freaking Rinnegan eyes were focused directly on her.
But he didn't speak.
'This is a god. What does that even mean?'
Suddenly wishing that she knew anything about religion at all, Aiko slipped into the deepest bow she could manage, and held it.
Still he didn't speak. Aiko chanced raising up to a 15 degree bow and spoke from that position, wishing she could see to gauge his expression but not daring to be rude enough to look directly. "I don't mean to be demanding or rude, but I wanted to revive the girl known as Fuu. Um, she's from Waterfall."
Graveyard breath washed over her, tugging on her clothes- and it was disconcertingly cool, breath was supposed to be hot but oh of course a dead thing didn't have a warm body-
And Aiko gasped, buckling to her knees with the shock of sudden chakra deprivation. One moment she was sitting pretty, and the next her reserves were scraping the bottom of the barrel. She blinked down at her fingers sprawled across the rocks, sticky with coagulating blood and pale where they were clean.
In her peripheral, Zetsu bubbled, the leaf she'd torn wavering. A rumble originated from the god of hell but he didn't speak, just looked at Zetsu's corpse so she did too as the leaf swelled and gravity compelled it to lay flat instead of drift on its stem. It stretched in length, and began to tear to reveal glistening pink flesh in a pod – like a pea! Stunned, it was all she could do to stare as the raw meat expanded and shaped, losing its blob-like simplicity and developing definition of –were those lungs? Yes, they were definitely lungs but no worry because they were quickly covered by what had to be muscle (and she saw the outline of bone appearing underneath the new muscle just for a moment, before the thing grew skin).
'The miracle of birth,' Aiko thought, and then she giggled faintly. Because that was ridiculous. It was like watching her own birth. This was exactly what had happened to her, wasn't it?
'It was so scary to wake up after that. Naked and sitting in a pool of blood is just not the best impression.'
A lot of those first days had faded in her memory, but that initial terror and confusion was still pretty fresh and impossible to forget.
That thought was actually why she struggled to her knees and used her cleaner hand to work the hidden buttons on her cloak. Fine muscle coordination was difficult, but she managed to get it off and turn the garment inside out so that only red was displayed. Then she waited a few moments. In the time that she had taken her eyes off Fuu, a head and legs had formed. Arms were sprouting- tiny nerves and veins flowing around bones being built from marrow out, and then muscle again and eventually hopelessly perfect, beautiful fingers rested at the end of thin wrists. Admiringly, Aiko stared for just a little too long at the incredible miracle she had witnessed birth itself from a leaf, of all the things.
And then she remembered that she was staring at a naked girl and turned bright pink. Fuu had a nice body, certainly, but staring at her while she was nude and unconscious was just fucking wrong. Aiko hastily draped her cloak over the other girl, still thrilled and fascinated by the faint signs of breathing and the flutter of a pulse.
'I did that,' she realized. 'Well, sort of. Because of me, there's life where there wasn't.'
The ramifications of that were stunning. She couldn't even properly consider them at the moment. It was all just so much larger than she was.
She didn't remember fully standing up, but she was, so it was easy to turn back to the god of hell and give another long bow. "Thank you." Aiko swallowed, humbled by that kind of power. He'd used her chakra to do that, but he'd done the work. That was artistic. "That was amazing."
Just as inscrutable as he'd been the instant she first saw him, the god blinked once, and then sank under the earth.
'My heart is still pounding.' Aiko put a hand to her chest, marveling that the heart she was feeling had been built just like that, out of an idea and someone else's chakra woven into physical form.
"Amazing," she said quietly.
"What was that?" Utakata demanded, sounding just a bit hysterical, as if he had been asking something along those lines for a while. "Uzumaki, what did you do?"
Aiko laughed once out of surprise and a rising sense of euphoria, too high to even remember that she hadn't told him her name. She shook her head, still smiling. "Don't you recognize a god when you see one?" She fell to her knees to check Fuu's pulse. It was going strong.
More importantly, a hand darted out to wrap around her wrist with bruising force, and orange eyes snapped open. Aiko didn't even have time to feel trepidation about her delicate bones being in someone else's grasp before recognition sparked.
"Uzumaki?" Fuu sat up groggily, clutching the cloak to her chest. Her brow creased and she jerked to awareness, surveying the cave. She didn't seem impressed.
Aiko couldn't blame her. Light barely stroked its way inside the hideout Akatsuki had been using to murder jinchuuriki. All that was visible was faint outlines of jagged rocks and hints of scraggly plant matter struggling to survive, and the hints of the hideous statue in the furthest reaches of the cave. And Zetsu's corpse, of course, which Fuu was nearly laying on.
'Oops. I didn't think that bit through.'
Fuu shrieked in surprise and leapt to her feet, distancing herself from the body in a blur of motion.
'Let's not dwell on that.'
"Utakata, this is the lady friend I was talking about," Aiko introduced. The man in question was bright red and turned away, because Fuu hadn't quite figured out that holding the cloak to her chest wasn't covering everything from view. It only took a moment for the girl to realize that and pull on the cloak, holding it shut with her left hand. "Fuu, Utakata will be escorting you away from here. I can't stay with you two." She paused, and then added, "I would suggest going in any direction that doesn't make tactical sense. The Akatsuki you'll be running from is a lot faster than any of us."
Missing the point entirely, both jinchuuriki looked around as if they'd find an opponent in plain sight. "Akatsuki!" Fuu clenched a fist, suddenly afraid. "Why am I here? I was in Taki. Chomei? Chomei?" She turned in circles, as if hoping that she had somehow missed a demon in her initial survey of the area.
It was sort of pathetic, actually. With her little bare feet, Fuu looked like a lost waif.
"Where are you?"
'I'm probably a bad person for being grateful that she doesn't remember my part in this. I suppose she doesn't remember the genjutsu at all.'
Aiko shifted uncomfortably at the increasingly frantic search, digging her toes into her boots. "There?" she offered, nodding her head towards the many-eyed statue.
"We don't have time for this." His words were harsh, but Utakata seemed a bit pitying when he laid a hand on Fuu's shoulder. "I am sorry about your friend. But Bijuu cannot die. He will be reborn after his prison is destroyed, or reemerge elsewhere. You do not have such resilience."
"She," Fuu corrected thickly, rubbing at her face. "Chomei- she's a she."
"Right," Aiko said, dubious about Utakata's comforting claim –dead was dead and short of being extracted again, it was stuck in that statue- but willing to let it go. "She'll be fine, but you should go." She gave a tentative stretch of her hand, making sure she knew exactly how the scabbing would restrict her movement.
'I need to get going too. I'm not going to be able to go as far as I'd like or as fast, if I can't afford to use chakra. Obito said that raising the dead was chakra prohibitive, but I never really thought it'd be like this.'
Stupid, perhaps, but in her defense he'd also said that Nagato had raised hundreds of people at a time. He'd either had hundreds of times more chakra than her or had somehow managed to use less for the job. Aiko didn't have it in her to pull out more than a mid level jutsu or two, and that would probably leave her a useless puddle.
She was still functional, of course. But the chakra that normally augmented her muscles was drained, leaving her feeling heavy- like she was walking through a pool of pudding. There was just more resistance. Was this what it was like to be a civilian, encumbered by the weight of your own flesh? How droll.
"No." Fuu's jaw was set stubbornly. "I can't leave her trapped here. If we destroy the statue, she'll be free."
Oh, for fuck's sake. She was really going on about a demon like that? Besides, that didn't make sense. If a jinchuuriki was killed without extracting their bijuu, the damn thing dissolved. That was the whole reason Akatsuki had expended time and energy to extract the thing instead of just cutting Fuu's throat. Why would the statue be any different?
'This is ridiculous. We're wasting time.'
Aiko rolled her eyes. "And what are you going to do about it?" she demanded, prodding Fuu sharply with a finger. "If I remember right, you're running on empty now, aren't you? What are you going to do, argue with the statue? It's solid rock. That'd take some major concussive force, or a decent ninjutsu."
"I'm not leaving," Fuu repeated stubbornly, stumbling over and placing her hands on the statue as if she could communicate with the demons inside. "I know she's lost to me, but she's my friend."
Aiko stared, aghast at that useless sentimentality. It wasn't a person. It was a demon. Were they even sentient?
'I didn't do all that so she could get herself killed by sticking around here. If it'll make her happy, who cares if we destroy the rock? It's ominous anyway.'
Coming up with the idea was easier than implementing it, considering the collective state of their ragtag group.
"Utakata, you got anything that could work?" Aiko tried, knowing that angle was hopeless but hoping anyway.
He shook his head, not even bothering to follow the women further into the cavern. "In my current state, certainly not. Perhaps if I called on Saikon?"
'He gave his demon a name too?' That was actually a little disturbing. One person being deluded was explainable. Two sounded like there was a legitimate explanation. 'Maybe they are sentient, then? Duly noted. They're not scary stupid things, they're scary smart things.'
All the more reason not to have them around, even if they wouldn't be a fucking beacon to anyone paying attention- namely Obito. "No!" Aiko cut Utakata off, nipping that idea in the bud. "Demonic chakra will bring him running right back. I just… Shit," she cursed unenthusiastically, running a hand over her braid. "Just fucking…" Out of options, she resigned herself to wasting energy on one more useless gesture to make Fuu happy. "I'll figure out how to get rid of it," Aiko promised.
Fuu brightened immediately, blinking childishly oversized eyes. That just wasn't fair, she was too stinking cute.
"But you two have to go now," Aiko stressed. "You understand? I'll do this for you, but I'm risking enough without worrying about you."
Her best option was her chakra chains, as far as she could tell. They took a lot of energy to use, but she got that all back when she reabsorbed it. They were capable of considerable concussive force. Other than that… well, c class earth techniques weren't going to cut it. Water and fire were her stronger elemental suits, but they were completely unsuited for the nature of the task. Her wind element repertoire was downright pathetic due to her lack of interest, which was a shame since the cutting properties would have been helpful.
'I'll give it a real try. If I can't do it, I'll just go. Fuu won't know the difference if I fail, if she's already left.'
Not that she wanted to lie or anything, but this wasn't worth dying for.
"Why do we have to go?" Fuu asked, tilting her head. "Wouldn't it make sense for the three of us to stay together? Strength in numbers and all that?"
Aiko stifled a snort. As if they stood any sort of chance against Obito.
"We are collectively weakened past the point of utilizing that strategy," Utakata noted with just a hint of amusement. "Stealth and haste are better options." And he was looking better, she observed, moving more fluidly than he had been ten minutes ago. Perhaps his bijuu was helping him.
Aiko nodded in agreement, although that hadn't been her primary reasoning. "And he'll be looking for me first," she explained. "Fuu here is probably lowest priority, since she's nothing but a witness at this point."
A disturbed look flew over Fuu's face, as if she'd just realized that her bijuu's absence should have meant she was dead. Aiko was definitely not ready to have that conversation, so she bullied the other two out, physically propelling Fuu with a hand between her shoulder blades.
"But-" the other girl started.
"Remember, you're actually better off not heading straight for anyplace that makes sense," Aiko reminded. "We're currently south of Suna. Don't tell me where you're going, it's better if I don't know. Move fast, he won't be gone long."
"Are you sure you'll get away?" Fuu asked, voice trilling up. Then she slapped her forehead with a palm and rolled her eyes self-depreciatingly. "How could I forget. Of course you'll be fine. You'll just disappear when you're done and reappear somewhere else."
'Is that some kind of joke?'
Aiko felt her face twitch. That girl needed to go get her head looked at, seriously.
Utakata at least had the sense of preservation to firmly take Fuu's arm and keep her moving without apparently caring about whether or not Aiko would survive on her own.
She could appreciate that. Now that he wasn't her responsibility, she didn't care if he pissed or went fishing.
"Good riddance," she mumbled. Jinchuuriki were troublesome. Aiko heaved a sigh and rolled her neck, trying to loosen her muscles. "I'll just… get this over with." She cast a dubious glance at the statue. This was, by any reasonable metric, the least difficult or unreasonable thing she'd set out to do all day.
But looking at it gave her an uneasy tug in her stomach, a lingering trepidation that she couldn't entirely explain away. Like it was something that she shouldn't be tangling with.
"Stupid," she chided, tugging on the end of the braid that laid over her shoulder. "It's a feng shui nightmare, not anything supernaturally powerful."
Just, like, supernaturally offensive to the eyes.
Destroying it was practically a deed for the good of mankind. Aiko kept that thought in mind as she pooled a good half of her remaining chakra along her spine and let it slide into three sets of thick links. She swayed on her feet when the chains erupted out of her skin to coil- triplet serpents twisting up to strike.
The combination of her physical circumstances hit her then. She was weary and worn from days of stress and poor appetite, and her chakra reserves were pitifully depleted. That was probably the only reason that the blood loss for that summoning was bothering her so much- she was already woozy and low on blood sugar.
'I need a nap.'
It was with that less than heroically inspiring thought that she struck at the statue from three angles- directly above the skull and in a pincer from the upper left and upper right- that sent fissures rocketing through the stone. Instantly the cavern stank.
But not of dust. The smell she breathed in was old bones and the acidic tang of poison like vinegar and rotting plant matter.
The top third of the fracturing statue jolted downwards with an eerie scrape.
'I do not want to get trapped under falling rock. Time to go.'
Aiko sucked her chakra chains back in and bolted, common sense knowledge about the general harmlessness of inanimate objects overcome by the startle of fear caused by the combination of noise, stink, and sudden movement. The scrape gave way to dozens of cracks and concussive sound from stone hitting other stone.
"Shit!" Aiko yelped, voice hitting a pitch normally only managed by small children. She leapt over the rocks towards the entrance without checking to see what exactly was making the unearthly racket behind her.
She broke out into the sunlight, dry heat slapping her skin. As soon as she'd cleared the shadows Aiko wheeled around to see- though she kept moving, walking backward jerkily.
"Thank god I'm a coward," she breathed. Foul-smelling smoke was drifting out of the cave, completely erasing the inside from view. It didn't seem like something to breathe in. She waved a hand at it, trying to push away the billows that prickled at her flesh and stung in her nose.
At least it was over. Alright, now she needed to get moving. Utakata had seemed to set a course west, so maybe she would go northwest. That wouldn't put her near anywhere useful or allies, but she was better off laying low for a little bit and letting Obito think she'd slipped past him en route to Suna or something.
Her heart dropped to her gut before she knew what was wrong, a full second before an overpowering wave of boiling chakra hit her and actually knocked her over. Aiko screamed in shocked pain, scrabbling away before she even saw that her skin was peeling and bubbling, before she knew that ugly red droplets were working their way out of her skin.
Inanely, she remembered Obito mentioning the dangerous properties of demonic chakra. He didn't fucking joke around, did he?
'This is a stupid way to die.'
She choked back a sob, lungs burning as if they were full of smoke but it was just poisonous chakra that she was breathing in. Tears covered her vision and made fleeing harder.
Nothing, nothing could distract her from the overwhelming noise of three different throats roaring and the tumultuous clatter of an enormous amount of rapidly expanding matter pulling apart the cave like it'd been made of lint from the dryer.
Some very small part of her was screaming, but the rest of her was frozen in shock.