A Measure of Darkness

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." Reincarnation!OC

— Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

EIGHT

A Measure of Darkness

Garden Village Troubles: A Pain in the Grass

I get some sleep that night and wake up alright. We chow down on quick breakfast, make our plans, and get moving. Since we're so close, we walk quickly through the knee-high grass.

The landscape is made up of very few flowers and countless mushrooms. There are large patches of yellow grass, dried from the sunshine. The grass does not seem disturbed by any animal of any kind. There are hills and there are sudden dips in the ground that nearly breaks our ankles.

I end up telling Uro, "This place is giving me bad vibes. There's no animals, no bugs, no nothing. That's not right."

"You are correct. There is a distinct lack in animals."

"Do you think they just ran away?" Shisui interjects. "If they all died, we'd probably see some remains."

"Who knows," Uro says.

I sniff the air a few times. "They weren't hunted. I didn't see old weapons or blood stains."

"Did they run away?" Shisui holds his chin thoughtfully. "What could be so terrible that it makes all animals run away?"

"Something that predates without distinction," Nahime, of all people, responds. Her tone isn't as chilly as usual and she even looks back at Shisui and me. "Obviously, there has been no catastrophic weather here, so it must have been a creature. I've never heard of a creature that causes this much terror aside from humans."

"That's why we're here, huh, Uro-sensei?" I say. "It's our job to find this creature?"

"Correct."

Then there's no doubt about: we're looking for the kikaichuu-like insects.

We're looking for small, aphid-esque bugs that eat the chakra and can hide their presence in the body unlike the usual kikaichuu. Never knew these bugs could be this terrifying—though I've only ever seen them pacified and controlled. Honestly, the fact a chakra-eating bug exists is unbelievably overpowered. Practically everything has chakra or natural energy. Even animals have chakra—I confirmed that myself during my early experiments with Ninshuu. Their system isn't nearly as refined or complicated as a human's, however, and it lacks the selfishness of ninjutsu.

"Isn't this kind of interesting," I comment with a smile. "Since we're the Leaf's track and search team, we're looking for something. Care to tell us what this mission is, Uro-sensei?"

"Naturally, it is our goal to find something. However, this may be very difficult for you three. Little is known about our target. What is known is that it will kill you if you are not careful."

Her words would sound sweet if she lost the monotone.

"Beating around the bush, Sensei? But aren't you blunt? What could be so bad?"

Maybe she's not worried about us, but about her status. From a clan that is assumed to have full control over chakra-eating bugs, finding more in existence that are uncontrolled is not good for the Aburame's reputation. What if another Aburame-like clan or insects formed? How many lives would be claimed by the bugs?

"We are searching for deadly insects," Uro says, effectively informing us without us knowing the truth. Excluding me. "If we do not find these insects, many will die."

"Ah," Shisui inhales, "it's a good thing we have Sensei on the team! Well then, let's do this, Team 11. We have lives to save!"

His enthusiasm is nice. It lightens the heavy atmosphere that had gradually arisen. Uro is quieter. Nahime is thinking as we move. I offer a smile, but my mind is whirling.

Even if I know what we're up against, I don't know how to defeat it.

There's no way genjutsu can work. I'm basically giving them my chakra to eat. I doubt it'll work anyway—couldn't Shino dispel genjutsu using his bugs? Using taijutsu is absolutely stupid, and ninjutsu suffers the same issue with just throwing chakra for them to eat. All I can really use are Weapons Techniques and medical arts maybe.

Could... poison work?

I had taken herbology and pharmacology in med school. While my knowledge won't beat a Yamanaka's, I do know a thing or two about poisons. Especially overdose side effects.

"Uro-sensei," I call and she watches me. "Being in the Aburame Clan and all... you know a lot about insects, right?"

She nods once. "Though, none as keen as my insects."

"So, are there things that are poisonous to insects?"

"Do not tell me you're trying to create pesticide," butts in Nahime, scowling. "It is not our job to kill these bugs."

"Not every poison leads to death, you know."

Nahime turns away.

"About that..." Uro averts her gaze by turning her head slightly. "I do not know."

"Eh? Come on now, your parents never told you to keep away from anything that can hurt your bugs?"

"Firstly, I will not expose the weaknesses of my insects to anyone. Secondly, insects families are extremely diverse. Naturally, things that hurt one family may be completely ineffective on a close family. It is quite possible that the insects have faced poison and could have mutated to avoid harm."

So that's a whole lotta nothing.

I'll just brute force it.

"Good points, Uro-sensei, I won't try it." I offer her a fake smile and everything.

I feel like she doesn't trust my words one-hundred percent, but she doesn't have any evidence to challenge me with. Shisui brushes off my line of reasoning after her words, wiping off his interested look before becoming contemplative.

Nahime... who knows.

We continue our journey up until the village in distance becomes right in front of our noses. It's the opposite of the lively and bustling entrance to the Leaf. Everything seems faded and old through a lack of maintenance or care. The streets are empty and the houses and buildings seem deserted.

But I can tell the dusty road had been recently disturbed by more than one person.

"A ghost village?" Shisui mumbles.

"Almost," I say, "but not quite. There's people still living here. Though by the looks of things, not very well."

"How do you know? There are lawns that haven't been cut for months."

"Shissan, a ninja has to see more than just the obvious!" I throw an arm around his shoulders and guide his head. "You see that? There's a cobweb in door's corner—broken and destroyed. That's means the door had been recently opened, at least frequently used enough for a human or animal to disrupt it."

Shisui stares at the ground, gears turning. "But, that can't be so. All the animals and insects are gone."

"Cobwebs are durable, Shissan, it's the spider's source of food, after all. If the spider had died, I doubt it would've destroyed its nest. Something or someone else had to destroy it."

Shisui frowns in thought.

We cross the threshold and slow down. Nahime looks back at Uro, who walks around us and takes the lead. She moves purposefully even though this is our first time here.

Uro knocks on the door where the cobweb is. "Hello? This is Uro Aburame of the Hidden Leaf Village speaking. We are here to deal with the local problem. If you would be so kind as to—"

The door swings open. In the darkness, a man stands. Pale and emancipated, he looks like a child more than the adult man his face and beard portray him to be.

"You should'nt have come here," he says, shaking his head. "You'll die like the rest."

"Die? Why would we die?" Uro says calmly.

His eyes focus on the forehead protector. "The plague. Nothing stops the plague. So just hide and mind your own business..."

"Sir, we could be capable of stopping your plague," Uro argues, sticking her foot in the narrow opening of the door as the man goes to close it. "We just need to ask a few questions."

"How could you stop this? It doesn't stop! Men, women, children, animals, bugs—they all die. We've done everything we can to stop it, but it doesn't work. Now please, leave me be... I've survived this long..."

Uro takes a few moments after his words to begin removing her foot. In those moments, my mind is running wild.

Those bugs are the "plague". No matter what, they feed off chakra. Because they're so small, they can eat so many different sized animals. And with that, it's almost impossible to see them.

How would anyone stop a chakra-eating bug?

Wait a minute—the bugs infiltrated the village!

Shivers crawl up my spine and arms. My hair stands on edge just thinking about the possibility of bugs roaming my body. I need to figure out how to get rid of them immediately.

I step forward and push gently against Uro's heel, stopping her from moving with my foot. Her body turns to my direction, but I'm more focused on paranoid gaze the man gives me. As if he's ready to sprint away like a deer.

I smile gently. "Sir, please, I am an esteemed medic, taught by none other than Tsunade-sama. If there is a plague and you want it to end, I'm very qualified for the job. Please, may I preform a check up and ask a few questions?" Even for show, I fish through one of the many hidden pockets of my trench coat for my medic certification paper copy.

At last, his shoulders that were so high, that grazed his ears, relax. "Fine. Please hurry..."

He quickly let us in. Once the door is slammed shut, we see nothing but blackness. A thick, cinnamon and musk smell fills the air, giving me a headache. I can sense Shisui and Nahime's cringing by their sudden silence and paused breathing.

An orange flare bursts into existence then settles on top of a small candle.

The place could have looked good once. Now the furniture is missing, the windows are boarded, and the kitchen is covered in dust and bugs.

There's something rotting...

"How does this go?" The man drops to his knees in the middle of the living room. His body is weak but his dark eyes now gleam with hope.

It's a good thing I wasn't lying.

"Anywhere is fine, as long as you're comfortable." Then, seeing him continue to sit there, I walk over and hover my open hands over his back. As second later, an eerie blue light shines from my hands and weakly illuminates the room.

The Diagnostic Technique scavenges through his body, running up and down the sinews of his weak chakra system. Grazing the blood and flesh his own energy touch. Very soon I am able to tell the injuries to his body (he scratches his arm too much that he's broken the skin, he had a terrible sinus infection that's left its mark, he's mildly dehydrated). But nothing about the bugs.

The glows ceases.

He exhales shakily.

"I found no sign of the plague in you," I say. "But that doesn't mean you aren't infected. It'll take time for it to grow..."

"Infected or not, save me!"

He gets to his feet all too fast, turing on me with a glower. Behind him, Nahime and Shisui tense, ready for a fight.

"I let you in, I humored you," he begins less intensely. "If I'm gonna die, I want to know you can save them."

"Them who?" I say softly.

"The rest who made it."

"Where would these people be?" Uro jumps in, manifesting in front of me. "We will save them."

Having to look up at her, his confidence wavers. "The general's shelter."

"General?"

"Fought in the Third War. Used to be a ninja of your kind, but he said he couldn't work there anymore. Not after what his leader did. Just before the plague got worse, he used his ninja powers to build a shelter. Never saw it for myself."

I look past Uro at the man. "We could take you to it!"

"No. I've been on my own for too long. I'm sure I'm carrying the disease... I'll kill them all..."

"Thank you for your assistance," Uro says authoritatively. "We will continue. But may we ask you to allow us to stay here and rest?"

"If that's what it takes to save them all," he says.

We leave soon after, my hands itching to make sure the bugs aren't in our bodies. I keep checking my chakra for any changes. Nothing unusual.

"Uro-sensei," says Shisui, "can ninja of the Leaf just leave like that?"

"Usually? Never. Either he was a powerful man or he was a anonymous man. No man can leave past the gates without be accused of dissertation."

"If we find him..." Shsiui looks at the ground, in pain. "Won't he be a missing-nin? If we find him, we'll have to kill him?"

"Of course," she says easily. "Naturally, I'll be the one to do so."

"Woah, woah here!" I stop walking which gets everyone to stop and look. "He's saving the rest of the town from dying. Why does he have to die?"

"The general abandoned the Leaf. One of the very first rules all Academy students learn is that the ninja must always remain loyal to the Hidden Leaf Village. Leaving is prohibited."

"Oh yeah? What about Tsunade-sama? Didn't she leave the Leaf? Why aren't we killing her?"

"She falls under powerful, I bet," Nahime says, frowning with a hand on her hip. "Nobody can defeat her except for the other Legendary Three Ninja."

"Upon her neck is the First Hokage's necklace," Uro adds. "Tsunade-sama has not abandoned the Leaf, but we can hardly say she is mentally prepared to serve the Leaf. Not with her hemophobia and her duty as a medic."

Translation: Nobody's dumb enough to kill the First Hokage's granddaughter.

"Shisui, back me up, the man stays alive!"

He startles at my call, but nonetheless steps behind me. "He shouldn't have to die, Uro-sensei..."

"Any further debate is pointless," she states. "I will kill him once he is found and there is nothing you can do. Naturally, three Genin stand little chance against a Jounin."

As soon as she says that, I picture Team Seven attacking Kakashi Hatake. Things they've trained so long and hard in didn't even matter against him.

Could I defeat a Jounin? Could Itachi?

And then the wind blows. With it, is the smell of a fresh corpse.

I follow it, it being an easy scent to track. Even the rest start to smell the horrible odor as we get closer. We race through the deserted town until buildings turn into deadly silent forests and the forests lead to a small river.

Right next to the river is a pile of rags covered in drying blood with a human shape underneath. With no scavengers to disassemble the body, it has no choice but to bake under the sun.

The stench is nauseating. Even a dumpster would smell better than this corpse.

I would much rather cover my nose and touch the body with a twenty-foot long pole, but as a medic, it's kind of my duty to perform a checkup.

I pull off the beige cloak and see a deadly pale face with blood clots just under the skin. There is a clear distinction from the areas of his body under the sunlight without fail versus areas of the body in constant shade. A slight green tint spreads on some areas. With the relatively slow decomposition ruining little, I can tell he was a very healthy adult male. There is no wound on his body leading to his death and no prior wound that could have gotten infected. He was well-fed, well-nourished, and showed no signs of illness. I run a bit of my chakra through his body examining the internal integrity. Doesn't take long at all.

With a quick burst of the Santization Technique, I stand up and find my team looking at me expectantly, all trying to ignore the smell.

This is almost kind of funny.

"The body?" Uro says.

"Recently dead. I give it about three to five days. Was a fairly healthy, active man. Suffered no blow or injury. In fact, it looks as if he just died peacefully in his sleep, which is rare, almost impossible, for a healthy adult male to do. So if we look at his chakra, we find a different story."

After death, chakra does leak out the body and merges with the environment, becoming natural energy. The process, however, is very gradual, though not too slow. It's fast enough where skilled sensors can still feel the presence of chakra up to a week after a corpse. But not fast enough.

"There's not an ounce of chakra in his body nor in the environment. It's just mysteriously vanished."

Uro continues watching me, silent.

"That's... not supposed to happen?" Shisui hesitates.

"What did you think happens when you die?" I start to grin.

"I dunno... doesn't it stay?"

"Shissan," I say, "you're adorable."

"E-Eh?"

"I'm confused, too." Nahime folds her arms over her chest and nods to the corpse. "Is there some kind of chakra stealer that killed him? Can you tell if he's been in a fight?"

"There was no struggle. No battle," I say.

"Okay, then either it was a seal that drained his chakra or something like Sensei's bugs." Nahime looks at Uro guilty. "No offense, but those are the only two ways I have heard of stealing chakra."

No wonder she's top kunoichi. I feel a cold sweatdrop rolling down the side of my head.

"I definitely would have detected a chakra seal. But, usually, those decay after death or without an adequate chakra supply to latch onto. So it could only mean Sensei's bugs or some other third thing..."

Uro's expression doesn't change at all. I thought she'd be phased, but...

"But it's definitely not the work of an Aburame," I say.

"Huh?" Nahime, having thought we were on the same page, is immediately startled.

"Oh, great," Shisui sighs. "I didn't want to imagine our own Aburame Clan going rogue."

"No... I've seen a lot of Sensei's bugs in cadavers. There are key signs of kikaichuu. Not a single sign is in the body."

Nahime huffs. "So it is the third option, isn't it? But what else could it be? The plague? If the insects we are looking for aren't kikaichuu, then what is? What caused his death?"

"It could be..." I pause deliberately, watching Uro. "...something like my assignment the day we met Sensei. Strange little insects far more dangerous and insidious than Sensei's insects."

"No, no way Uchiha. The only way that's possible is if there's another Aburame Clan. But there isn't. There will never be one."

I step over to the corpse and put my foot on it. "There isn't a new clan. But here's something interesting."

I roll over the body, fighting a laugh upon hearing Shisui's and Nahime's screams and quick moving. Catching the sunshine, the corpse's forehead protector draws their eyes before I tell them where to look.

"Oh... my..." Nahime mumbles.

"The Hidden Cloud? Here? What are they...?"

On his head a metal slot tied to a bright white forehead protector. On the shining metal is unmistakably the Hidden Cloud Village's symbol.

"Our biggest enemies. Lightning wants to be the most powerful nation, not Fire. Who refused to disband their military when every nation agreed to? Who jumped into the war solely to fight the Fire ninja?"

And who nearly stole Kushina? Hinata Hyuuga?

"Somehow they've found these insects and are using them to torture us. But it looks like not even they can control them. They're wild creatures after all."

"But where do the insects live? How has anyone not seen these bugs? Why don't we see them more in battles?" Nahime looks to the distance, mind buzzing.

"They're not easy to control. They have no loyalty, unlike the kikaichuu. And what village would admit they have bugs like the Aburame? That's just begging for another war."

I use my foot to spill the contents of his pouch. Among poisoned kunai and shuriken is a seal with the Japanese character for alert. I can't help but smirk.

"See this? Our pal wasn't alone. His party should be near since he's just died, but where? I don't smell other corpses, there's no trace of other humans around here. We need an aerial view. Uro-sensei, can you use—"

"No need, I am about up to here with insects." Nahime goes through hand seals and with a burst of smoke, three reddish-orange birds appear. "Go search the area." Like that, the little birds soar fast.

"Cool," I smile.

"Well," Nahime says, nothing else.

How did Lightning find these bugs? How did they contain them enough to carry here? Is Garden Village their playground before they set the bugs off on the Leaf?

However, such an attack never happened in the Leaf.

Either it was downplayed or the Aburame insects dominated, but Lightning failed, right?

But, since I'm here, am I sure I won't be messing up anything?

I just need to be careful, is all.

"Amazing," Shisui mumbles.

"Huh?" I say.

"You're so smart to figure this out," he says quietly.

"Sorry, but I'm as clueless as you."

"Don't lie. They way you're speaking... it's as if everything is solved and you know how this ends. You're just waiting for us to catch up."

Shisui sounds hollow. No excitement, no awe. No happy shine in his eyes.

"If that's how I came across, I'm sorry. But I really don't know much more than you guys. It's okay, Shissan. It's not like you're a dead last or anything!"

It must be his Uchiha pride. I don't know if he had much of it given the little screen time, but I wouldn't put it past a nine-year-old to have it.

He's a good kid, even a little martyr-ish. He'll grow out of this phase.

"...should we bury him?" Shisui kind of awkwardly gestures to the corpse without pointing.

"Huh? What would be the point? He is the reason there are bugs killing innocents Garden Village," Nahime says, looking from the sky to him. "I say let him rot there."

"But... that's not right and we don't really know if he did this. He could've just gotten unlucky..."

"So you mean to tell me our mortal enemy from Lightning is cruising the countryside with a suspicious cloak, weapons, and an alert for his team is not related to this situation at all?"

"It could be a coincidence..."

Nahime scowls at the boy. "Do not let stupid feelings misled you from the truth. You are the kind of person who would sympathize with a ghost only to be possessed. If you truly value others, you cannot impede judgment."

"What?"

"Quit adding things to something not there," she exhales. "Just do."

The simple words resonate with Shisui.

I wonder... did Nahime give him the conviction to save the Uchiha? Did he learn it the hard way?

"Hey, Uchiha."

First I look at Shisui, but he's watching me. Then I look to Nahime. "You know, that's kinda confusing."

She ignores my sentence. "What are you thinking about? Aren't you more chatty?"

"Just thinking... I mean, our lives are at stake here. We're talking about superbugs. I don't know how to stop them or prevent them from entering our bodies..."

Not a single bug remains in the corpse. Which is odd. In every species, there are always the ones who die because their environment does not have enough resources to sustain them all. There should be dead insects at the very least.

"Maybe there are..."

I sit next to the body, activate my chakra, and start searching the corpse. I can feel the scars he's dealt to his chakra system by creating Lightning Release. I search through his system for any kind of large or small collection of chakra.

After forever, I find it.

Two small concentrations of chakra near his knee. I cut open the knee and search for the branch the bugs made their graves in.

I pull put a storage seal and slip them inside. Maybe I'll be able to create pesticide after all.

"Ew..."

"Uchiha, what is wrong with you?"

Shisui and Nahime are wincing at the sight of his exposed knee. I cover it up with the cloak. "Just getting tissue samples."

"Warn me next time, Uchiha."

"Your hands... no gloves..." Shisui is green.

"I sanitized! But it's not as if touching his body will kill me. There are no flies, so there are no maggots. No fleas, no scavengers. I mean, the only thing to fear is probably his exploding stomach."

"It—what do mean by that?"

"You probably don't want to be here when it happens, then," I smile at Nahime.

Nahime is back staring at the sky. But instead of watching the fat clouds drifitng lazily by, her bird is flying towards her.

"That can't be good," Nahime says. "He never moves this fast."

.: EIGHT END :.

- 1 Nov 2018