A strange new life 6.7

6.7

Announcent

I have a server now.

Wow, look at , getting updated with the tis. I'm not online often, but I promise to check every now and again. xD

Karin’s eyes were a mix of startled, scared and curious. She pushed back. My head flopped out of her lap onto the ground.

“What? How do you know my na?”

Oh, right. I wasn’t supposed to let people know I knew this stuff. Goes to say I wasn’t fully recovered yet if I ssed up this bad with my most guarded secret. Hadn't sothing similar happened with Ino-chan as well? No, not the ti. It was thinking-very-fast-no-jutsu ti. I had no idea how to answer Karin. Change-subject-no-jutsu, made a surprise appearance to save the day.

“How long was I out?” I rasped out, felt the familiar stinging on my throat. The healing healed the injury, but it hadn’t fixed the root cause. Talking was still a chore, and it still hurt. I didn’t wait for a response. I got up, and under a half dozen pairs of wide eyes, I got dressed in the rags that had been covering until now.

I an. What else could I do? I wasn’t going to show how shy I was about this whole stuff. No, my face wasn’t burning. My ears weren’t red. That just didn’t happen. I was a badass strong kunoichi who just kicked a lot of ass, in her birthday suit, then just decided to traipse back into the cells. Nothing out of ordinary here. Move along, citizens.

Dressed and not flashing anyone, I looked at my injuries. The stab in my chest looked like a months old injury, sa with the side and leg. Most of the small injuries were gone, the burning had faded, leaving a barely visible scar on the worst parts. No wonder Orochimaru kept her around. I wanted to keep her around myself.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I tried to check the others. Aside from Karin, there was one more girl and four boys. The girl looked like a very thin fifteen year old, dressed in dirty rags. There were so sort of markings on her face that looked like a clan mark, but I couldn’t place them. The boys were a mix of young and older. There was this one kid that looked like ten, while the oldest around seventeen. All of them looked rough, dressed in hand--down type of clothing. They also looked roughed up, but I was guessing that was courtesy of our captors.

Between the boys, two of them also had so sort of markings that made think of shinobi families or clans.

That sparked a mory. Wasn’t this a thing in Kiri? Wasn’t that Haku’s whole situation as well before they t up with Zabuza? The persecution and discrimination against bloodlimit shinobi families due to the constant wars and violence and how those shinobi were used as tools of war.

Was this whole bunch all kekkei genkai shinobi?

Like a reflex, I tried to pop out my comms board, only to glance at my bare arm in a bit of confusion. Ah, yes, taken, prison, bad. My brain really wasn’t working properly. I had to talk with these people if we were to have a chance to leave this place alive. A small sigh escaped . I had only one choice left if I didn’t want to keep hurting myself. My hands flashed with seals. Out popped another .

The kids all around took another step back. I saw a few looking for ways to escape. Even Karin looked startled now. Why? I an, yes, here I was using clone jutsu, but that wasn’t bad, right? I nodded to my clone. Communication-chan had only one job: talk with this gaggle of people and make them ready while I prepared for our escape.

Communication-chan squealed, threw herself at Karin in a bear hug. “Oh my gosh, Karin-chan! I love you! Even if you have the worst taste ever in boys. Emosuke, really? Why?”

I face-pald. Right, out of control clones, lower inhibition head injury. What else was I expecting?

It took a while to calm down Communication-chan and placate Karin. While my clone tied the bandage around the bite marks on the girl’s arm, it ended up falling to to explain things.

“Chunin exam.” That was the excuse I blurted out. I knew from Karin’s story she had participated in the sa exam as , even if I hadn’t seen her there. I hoped that was still true.

“Konohagakure’s Chunin exam?” She asked, her hand going toward her face in an unconscious gesture, fingers tracing the scar.

I nodded. The scar wasn’t as bad as I first thought, or maybe Karin’s healing abilities worked on that as well? The mark looked fading, like it had been years since the injury, and not months. My guess was that those marks were a gift from Forest of Death Bear-kun, since Sasuke wasn’t there to save her from it in this tiline.

Karin didn’t seem willing to let off the hook.

“Emosuke, who’s that?”

Communication-chan, the traitor, giggled. I shot her a glare to make sure she kept her trap shut.

“Is this really the ti? We have to escape.”

I played the deflection card again. I might have over played the throat injury card as well, letting a trickle of blood escape my mouth along with a bit of coughing. Take the hint Karin, I’m hurt here, can’t keep talking.

That might have done it. Karin looked startled, offered her arm again. Communication-chan decided to do her job. Finally, thank god.

She pushed the offered arm down.

“It’s not sothing you can help with,” she husked out.

I had to shake my head at that. Why was Comm-chan using our Seduce Best Girl voice with Karin?

Karin looked from to the clone, and I took the chance to leave them while explanations were given.

I left the cells and scoured the underground rooms for anything we could use. There wasn’t much. There wasn’t much ti I could spare. None of my stuff was here. Back at where I faced the other shinobi, I salvaged all the weapons I could, picked up the used kunais, shuriken wires and all that. Ran back to the cells and shared it with the other prisoners. It wasn’t much. Four kunais, a dozen shuriken, two spools of wire, two exploding tags. That would have to be enough.

While I was scavenging, Comm-chan managed to get others on board with the escape plan. Among the other prisoners, only Karin had shinobi training. The others were mum about it, but by the looks of it, yes, they were descendants of bloodlimit clans. I think only the tall girl actually knew how to use her bloodlimit. A misty hazy cloud that could be used to block vision, and other types of perception. Could be useful, but that also sohow interfered with my chakra sensing, which was less than ideal.

The escape plan was simple. I was going to blow up the blocked passage, and we would storm out of the complex before their reinforcents arrived. Ti was of the essence here. There were lots of questions being thrown around, none I had the patience to answer.

I an, how would I know where that kid’s pet was?

While the others bickered, I went on with my preparations. First, I created another beacon. I pushed my chakra, and a hardwood kunai ford on my hand. One of the downsides of using a modified mokuton clone for this was showing up in a ugly way. When I passed out for a few minutes, the kunai dispersed, just like a clone would do.

If Karin hadn’t healed and let suckle on her arm for a chakra top up, I’d be screwed right now. No, who am I kidding? If it wasn’t for her, I’d be dead right now. I owed her big ti.

Now, while Comm-chan wrangled the kids into so semblance of order, I was about to start stuff. We spent enough ti already. For this part, I was almost chakra depleted again, even after being topped up by Karin. Why? You ask? Well, the reason was simple. I had to reinforce the walls and pillars with mokuton for what was about to co. I couldn’t sense anyone in the complex above. The remaining chunin was nowhere near my perception range when I woke up.

With one last glance, I got a nod from my clone. It was ti. I approached the blocked passage, found a place where I could inscribe my seal. Only the best explosions for our escape. I pushed my chakra, black lines drawing the shape of freedom. Then I ran back to cover.

Yes, I know, blowing stuff underground was a bad idea, which is why I made sure to reinforce the whole thing with hardwood. Now I just had to deal with I don't know how many more enemies outside, without using chakra.

If everything went to shit, I could always sacrifice Comm-chan like a chakra refuel package. I hope she didn’t catch thinking that. That would be so much trouble.

Blow stuff up, kill anyone trying to stop us. Escape.

Should be easy, right?