The Red Maelstrom

[44] Cessation

The infuriating rain continued to pour all around, cloaking their side of the forest with an even stronger sense of foreboding that amplified the anxieties currently gnawing at Kohana's instincts. As Sasuke and Shiba relayed the current circumstances that led them on their frantic search for Kohana, she kept half of her attention on the rustle she'd heard a ways from where her teammate had emerged.

"Kakashi sent me here to retrieve you; we can't afford to be separated at this rate if they managed to get their hands on the girl," Sasuke had said. Kohana learned that he had been referring to Sugi, who had suddenly collapsed during the march. Apparently, even Kakashi had been stumped by the cause of said collapse as Sugi by no means had any physical afflictions since they left the village. That was, until Akano had found a seal manifesting on the back of her neck, but even upon locating the seal, Akano could only identify it as one that might have been created and shared only among a village or a clan. Sasuke had even clarified that Akano could recognize the origins of most seals, but seeing as this particular technique formula was one he was almost as unfamiliar with as the one Orochimaru had left on Sasuke, it was easy to infer that Ame-nin had been acting on their own agenda from the very beginning.

Kohana cursed under her breath. Beside her, Haimaru-sensei had barely let his guard down, surveying the area as best he could despite the cumbersome weather.

The simplest thing to do now was to return immediately to the main party, something Kohana could easily solve even with four of them present.

But the moment she tried, she knew that something was wrong when she started to bring her hands together and molded her chakra. Kohana mentally reached for their intended location, but she couldn't get a physical sense of any of her seals. Had she failed to notice their absence while she was busy searching for shelter? If that was the case, then what was causing this block?

Sasuke was frowning at the final seal that should have triggered the technique. His hand on her shoulder tightened as they shared a look. Shiba and Haimaru-sensei began to growl. "There's something blocking your technique." He sniffed the air, but his canine features only pinched in distaste and frustration. "I can't tell if it's a barrier. Is this what that guy meant when he said to 'watch out for the rain'?"

Kohana could have sworn she heard more than felt her heart start to beat insistently upon her ribcage. If she were a dog like Haimaru-sensei and Shiba she could imagine her ears pressing down close to the crown of her skull as she brought her body close to the ground. Somehow it was something she almost felt herself doing with how she began to take a defensive stance. "'Watch out for the rain'?" she parroted, "What's that mean, Shiba? Are you sayin' this rain isn't natural?" One more look shared between Kohana and Sasuke prompted the latter to finally activate his Sharingan.

"It isn't," he confirmed, and Kohana's heart just about dropped to her stomach.

"Sheesh. No honorifics? Pakkun was right about you kids. You're as disrespectful as Kakashi." But his whining fell upon Kohana's deaf ears as the staunch and frankly frightening implications of this cursed rain fell upon them like stones that could easily crush bone on impact. Kohana took a few deep, measured breaths to center her mind and body however she could manage. "Sasuke, what can you tell from the rain?" She and Shiba carefully observed Sasuke's face as he cast his red gaze upward and then around their vicinity. Kohana clenched her fists as Sasuke's jaw clenched, a sure sign that they were quite possibly in the sort of trouble neither she nor Sasuke could smirk their way through.

"If this is a barrier, the perimeter's obviously wider than we can imagine," Kohana supplied. It was hard to tell whether the rain they'd met with when Akano brought his genjutsu barrier down had been real, and even if it hadn't been, and Sasuke had told her the rain abated about twenty minutes after Kohana's departure, she couldn't parse the breadth of said perimeters.