The Way Through Stone Village (Naruto)

98: Ami

[OP: "Soldier, Poet, King"--The Oh Hellos]

Lee did think to grab Zokei's arms before that so she couldn't make hand signs.

"Ah, don't hurt me!" she cried when she woke up.

Ino steadied herself against Jugo before standing up. "We're lucky that worked."

"Easy, sis," Camie said to Zokei. "Zip it, okay? We're not gonna hurt you, as long as you just help us out here. We took you prisoner so they won't hold you responsible for it. Just tell them we had, like, a bajillion weapons and jutsu and crap later. Or we'll have to K.O. you right now, like we did with your fiancé."

"Is he okay?" Zokei asked.

"He'll be fine, except perhaps have a headache," Lee said. "But, I didn't hit him hard enough to really do actual damage. Only the first gate."

"What?" Zokei said.

"Nevermind," Ino said. "Take us to where they have the Kage and his family."

"You won't like that," Zokei said. "I don't know how he is now, but he can't be well if all this happened."

"You realize that he is the one who kicked us out before?" Jugo said, flatly. "I think we are less concerned for him personally than we are for the Village and the innocent people in it. There's nothing about this condition that should distress us that much. Though I don't enjoy people's suffering--anymore."

"Aw, you never enjoyed it, bro." Camie patted his arm lightly. "That was just the devil juice stuff inside you."

Jugo smiled faintly, as if he recognized now that Camie meant this to be comforting.

None of it made sense to Zokei, but she shrugged. "Fine. I warned you. The rest of it is in your own hands. Try to look as if I'm escorting you as prisoners. If anyone asks, it was on the boss's orders."

They nodded to that.

* * *

So what had happened to Sakura?

By the time the others were all doing the things mentioned above, she had been taken somewhere while blindfolded. Once the bandits had caught her they'd had no trouble restraining her.

Sakura had only just had time to release her Mitotic Regeneration Jutsu that made her basically invulnerable.

The trouble for her was that she had used up a significant amount of her reserves in the War, and she had only been working on this jutsu for a few years, unlike Tsunade, so she had far less reserves to being with. Which meant she'd time out in probably less than...oh...8 hours.

Maybe not if she didn't try to do anything else while using it...

She wasn't sure if she could keep it up long enough to escape.

It was funny, really, though, that the bandits took the only person who used Earth Style out of their captives to the one part of their newly-taken territory that was completely underground.

Sakura was sure they took her down some kind of steps, and that she was going farther under, because the air felt cold and still... She'd never been underground like this for very long, just a few times on missions... She wasn't as afraid of it as some people are, but neither did she like it. She'd be lost for sure; she had no sensory powers.

Not for the first time, Sakura began to berate herself for not having a remotely useful jutsu other than medical... Anyone else would have had a better chance of freeing themselves than she would!

(Which was not quite true. Jugo had far less chance, and Lee was only about the same as her. But that wouldn't have comforted her anyway.)

The trip really was only a few minutes though. The bandits moved through the earth like it was water more than dirt, and then they were stopping.