Strolling Amongst Stalactites

Racing to the Dead

Last Time:

Yumi and Yobaba watched as Kakashi walked through the door of their personal home in Konoha and gave them the thumbs up, "The seeds are sown." Yobaba said with a smirk of her own ...

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Naruko stood in the training ground nervously, "He's taking too long."

"In any other circumstances I wouldn't be concerned, but I think you're right to be worried. Coughing up blood is serious and we don't know how bad his condition is." Alice said and pulled out a whistle. She blew it and, despite no noise being produced, only a moment later the bird, who usually stays near Kimimaro, flew above the trees. "He's close."

Both Naruko and Alice raced off along the forest floor towards the area where the bird flew above. Once they came close the bird flew under the canopy and landed somewhere in the underbrush. The Cave ninjas immediately headed for that area and found the bird perched on some of the branches from a collapsed tree. They carefully explored the spot where the bird was pecking and came across a deep, yet narrow, sinkhole partially covered by branches.

"The sinkhole must've made this tree fall over." Alice commented as she carefully inspected. "It is a bigger opening, but the tree is covering it-don't cut it."she said quickly before Naruko could cut the tree with her threads. "We don't want debris to fall on him especially if we can't see where he is."

Naruko deflated and pulled her invisible threads back, "You're right ... Clara, Nina, Tina. Go find Kimimaro and we'll clear the opening."

"Of course!" Naruko's blonde hair fell out of her ponytail as Clara leapt into the sinkhole alongside Tina and Nina, but each one of the eight legged familiars left a thread of silk attached to Naruko's fingers.

As Naruko kept a solid hold on her spiders' threads as Alice focused on carefully clearing the opening. While working around Naruko, Alice made a hand sign and, without a word, used a jutsu that made the top layer of soil slowly crawl away. Everything from small branches to the full tree was locked in the soil and was shifted effectively revealing the full opening without causing another problem. As a bonus there was no trace of anyone touching anything.

Not long after her spiders disappeared into the darkness Naruko felt a series of tugs that turned out to be coded messages, "They found him ... he's unconscious, bloody and barely breathing ... the bottom of the sinkhole is solid, it's about 30 feet down and there's nothing jutting out of the walls." Naruko felt a web shift. "Clara put her web on his throat ... his pulse is very slow." Naruko murmured worriedly.

Alice made a sharp whistle into the sinkhole's mouth and listened to the echo, "35 feet. Good estimation." The experienced ninja took one look at the spiderwebs connected to the blonde's hand and took note of the angle it was at. "Get ready to lock it down." Alice said right before jumping into the dark hole.

Naruko blinked, "I didn't say where he was-" The blonde gasped as four ropes shot out of the darkness. Even though she was caught off guard she did manage to use her fast reflexes to grab the ropes. "I have them! I'm locking them down." She said into the hole and she pulled the ropes tight. She then wedged the ends deep into the dirt that was previously under the jutsu that made it crawl away. "It's locked!'" she called down into the darkness.

In an instant the top layer of soil became charged with chakra. The soil began crawling again, but the extra chakra didn't allow even the tiniest speck of dirt to move. Of course, that meant that even the ropes couldn't budge and was pulled along too. The farther the soil went the more rope emerged from the sinkhole. Finally, the person tied to the other end appeared.

"Kimimaro!" Naruko gasped as she saw the very pale face of the white haired spy. The little blue spiders perched on his head jumped onto Naruko as she reached forward to help guide the unconscious man onto the flat ground. Once the soil stopped moving Alice leapt out of the sinkhole and they started checking him over. "He's not looking good at all." She exclaimed with concern as she removed Kimimaro's shirt just enough to examine his chest.