The Way Through Stone Village (Naruto)

42: Getting Stoned Again

[OP: "The Truth is a Cave" --The Oh Hellos]

Ino was on the ground before she even knew what had broken the window.

She'd both moved and Sai had moved and pushed her down.

Glass rained one over them or was already on the floor--Ino felt some on her hand, but she didn't think it cut her.

"What--?" she started to ask.

To her surprise, Sai covered her mouth at once.

But Sai was well trained for surprise attacks and this had all the earmarks of one.

They both froze.

They heard glass break again half a second later. Then again, and again. Half the windows in the building must have been broken.

But then they heard glass breaking from farther away, as if the other buildings in the compound were being attacked in the same way.

Ino could tell there were people outside the window. Their mental energy was discernible, but she knew she hadn't sensed it before.

The only way must have been underground, or they had come out of a tunnel using Earth Jutsu, because earth and rock could block electromagnetic signatures the best.

She wasn't as precise as Karin, so she didn't know who it was, but of course who else could it be but the Stone shinobi?

Were they going to kill them? Was this an ambush?

They must be hopelessly outnumbered right now. No way they could take the whole force of Stone Village!

Ino was not one to panic at bad odds, at last not audibly, but she did freeze up.

However, Sai did not give her much chance to do this, he immediately started to creep away from the open window and was tugging her so that she could move also.

It was hard to do this while staying low, and being this close to each other, but neither of them tried to move farther out.

They did crawl out of the moonlight cast by the window and into the shadows of the hall.

Ino's heart was pounding so fast she thought the attackers would hear it.

Before she could try to focus enough to connect with Sai mentally, they were interrupted by Wally appearing in the hallway.

He had his running shoes on so he didn't step on the glass, but he didn't crack it.

He ran past them at first, but then turned back and stopped.

"Ino? Sai?" he said. "That's you right? It's too dark."

"It's us," Ino said in a hushed voice this time. "Get down, Mr. West."

"It's fine, I can dodge," Wally said. "But they aren't hurling any more rocks here."

It was true.

"It seems almost like a warning shot, I heard it go off all up and down the property," Wally said. "I'm helping everyone out of the rooms nearest to those windows, but no one's coming in the place, yet. You two need to get away from here, into one of the more center areas...there's not really one here, but in the center building there's that room that's like a sitting room."

Sai nodded. "You can take us there after than we can--but should I-"

"Don't do anything yet," Wally said. "Just wait. Shine will probably have a better idea about this, and Gaara will not want us to rush anything."

Without another word, he whisked them both into the central building so fast that Ino nearly choked on the air.

In this room they found half of the team already waiting. The boys mostly. Shine was also there, with Karin, who had her hands over her ears. But she was sniffing the air, so she hadn't entirely gone to pieces. [That's a weird way to know that, when you look at it.]