Ain't That a Kick in The Head?

13: Icha Icha Strategies ii

heads up, it gets a bit violent during the last segment of the chapter
words signaling the start and end of those sections have been bolded for your convenience !!

Sai's ink animals have tracked down seven unfamiliar chakra signatures that weren't on their map of the castle yesterday. According to Sakura, these unfamiliar shinobi are likely to be their assassins. For some reason, they haven't left.

The running theory is that they haven't finished the job yet.

"What?" cries Umeko, "I'm hardly important enough to-–to be hunted down like some sort of prize game like this!"

(It's not just her, Sasuke thinks, if he were one of these mysterious assassins, he'd want confirmation that everyone they'd been sent to assassinate was well and truly dead. Can't blame them for just doing their jobs.)

They've created a temporary mission headquarters and field hospital in Umeko's thoroughly booby-trapped and sealed off room. Ryūto, Hajime and Captain Yamato lie comatose on futons in the center of the room.

The daimyō is dead.

Too much poison over too short a period of time is Sakura's diagnosis.

Sakura can't make an antidote until she knows what poison was used on them. This means several things: One, they've got to get her clothes back from the assassins. Specifically, her weapons pouch so she can identify the poison.

Time is ticking down for the poisoning victims, there's a very real possibility that they'll all die if she doesn't find the antidote within the next couple of hours.

Two, they've got to protect Umeko and the others who are comatose. It's likely that with their cover of stealth blown, the assassins will try different tactics.

Three: this is the stupidest plan in the history of plans of all time, ever.

"No." Sasuke says. "No fucking way."

"Oh Sasuke," Sakura sighs, in the way that she used to when they were younger. A chill jolts down his spine. There's an oddly terrifying discrepancy between the cold, pragmatic look in her green eyes, the emotionless smile she wears and the singsong of her voice, "You're doing it."

Naruto is currently losing his shit laughing on the floor. Sasuke hates him so very, very much.

"And you're sure there's no other way," he tries. Sakura shakes her head, with the same cold grin plastered on her face. He suspects she's enjoying his misery. She has to be.

"Umeko can't mold chakra," She says with a shrug.

He sends a pleading look to Kakashi, standing against the wall with his face half buried in his stupid green book. Kakashi shrugs. "It's Sakura's plan. We ought to let her lead it."

He sends a pleading look to Sai. Sai merely smiles vacantly at him.

He sends a pleading look to Kazuhiko, who gives him a guiltily apologetic one in return. "I'm sorry my friend, but if this has the slightest chance of workin' and protectin' Umeko, I'm afraid we need t' go through with it."

Naruto laughs even harder. Sasuke walks over to him and kicks him in the gut. "Ooow! Bastard!"

"You," he says, leveling Umeko with a vicious glare, "Why do you not know how to mold chakra? You have shinobi relatives, correct?"

"I do, or I did in the past," says the noble girl, "My grandmother left her clan to marry my grandfather. Half-clan children would have been ostracized in her clan. My father and her other children were taught enough to protect themselves as they were born during wartime, but I wasn't. It didn't help that there was an incident where almost all of our relatives perished. She feared my cousins and I would be targeted, so we never learned."