Kai had left Sawaru behind to deal with gathering the majority of their group. Only the one nicknamed Masa would he seek out himself, and for good reason. The sealing ninja was key to their successful escape. Of course, so were many others, not least the poor bugger that was assigned to guard the tunnel.
He didn’t have a full plan, only fragments, pieces of what could become one. He tried to put them together, like pieces of a jigsaw-puzzle. He turned them, twisted them, dropped or exchanged them if they didn’t fit. He walked while he was almost entirely lost in thought. His legs moved by themselves, his eyes seemed to register people, holes, streets and other hazards which allowed Kai to move around them, but no data entered his mind, for it was occupied. He wasn’t the brightest guy in the village, he wasn’t ever sure that he was the smartest one in their group, but somehow he’d been assigned the role of “the man with the plan” almost since day one. He didn’t really know how this had happened, but he kind of liked it. That was his second reason for going after Masa. They were of the same kind of mind, they harbored knowledge in their minds that were unseen in many whole families. Any holes in his plan should be fillable by Masa.
Kai’s feet marched steadily toward the library, or the library complex to be more precise. The thing had so far outgrown its original state that it was almost hard to see it as one thing anymore. It had spread out as a drunk man on a bench too small for his head, now the trash can had to serve as a pillow. He snapped back to reality as his hand touched the main door, the cold metal sent the first tangible incoming data to his mind in almost an hour and with only a slight hesitation and confusion on how he’d gotten there he pulled the door open.
The inside of the library smelled, not surprisingly, like books. Old paper, dry air, ink and cardboard… Something more, that special type of glue that kept the pages from falling out. Of course, there were many scrolls in the library as well, books were considered a new ‘fad’ that might die away any day despite the fact that they’d been around for a good while and many people found them easier to use in everyday life that the bulky scrolls that had to be unrolled all the way to where you wanted to read. With a book you only needed to remember the page number and open the right page.
Kai hung around near the entrance for a while. The library had very limited room, and if you weren’t careful you could be pushed all the way into the darkest and most primitive parts of it by some would-be reader and you couldn’t pass each other because the lanes were too narrow. Even though that shouldn’t be a problem for a ninja such as Kai, he (and every other ninja in the world) was explicitly forbidden to “do any of that jumping around and knocking things about” inside the library. Something inside him had always wanted to see what would happen if he did, but his gut told him that it would probably be a bad idea.
The red-headed ninja known as Masa suddenly appeared from the crowd and suggested a more private meeting location in the back without even stopping. Like fish in a school Kai stepped into place slightly behind and to the left of Masa and moved as his shadow as they made their way to the more secluded tables. They were almost alone, save for one or two book-worms that seemed to be as engrossed in their chosen literature as Kai had been in his plan earlier, a bomb could go off in there and they’d complain that the shockwave had turned the page.
Kai sat down with his back toward the way they’d come and picked up a book that was left there by an earlier visitor, he opened it and held it in front of him while he rested the majority of the weight on the table and motioned his co-conspirator to do the same.
“This is a genjutsu” Kai said in a very matter-of-factly voice, as if it needed to be pointed out. Technically it was, but it was not perfected, it wasn’t even practiced. It shared almost nothing with the techniques that he would trust his life with in a fight. It was lite comparing a raw potato to one that had been baked, cut open and filled with butter, cream, meat and vegetables. It was still a potato…
Anyone with even the simplest grasp of genjutsu would be able to spot at least a dozen holes in the technique, the dancing letters in the book, the sound of footsteps even though no one was around, the sun that was racing impossible fast across the window. All marks of an incomplete technique that was made up on the go, had they been enemies Masa would’ve been able to break free and overpower Kai while the artist was still trapped in his own technique.
“I feel that I must… We are too close to be stopped now. We can speak freely here, my technique intercepts the signals from your brain before they can reach your body. Anything you say will be for my ears only, anyone watching us will only see us reading our books.”
Kai sat silent for a short while to allow Masa to process this, he was unsure if the sealing ninja had even been under an illusion before, the experience could be… Strange.
“We’re leaving tomorrow. There are two guards, one in the basement of the admin building, one by the exit. If either of them notice us they will sound the alarm and the old man (Hyuuga Hiroshi) will send everyone he can spare to get us back.” The white-eyed leader of the village was almost uncharacteristically strict about people leaving the village, compared to his laid back “Train what you think is best”-teaching at the school.
“We want at least a few hours head-start, that way we can be far way once they realize we’re gone, and might abandon their search before they get too far away from the village.
Of course, we don’t want to hurt the guards, that wouldn’t be good for us, them or the village…”
“What do you think? I can trap the guard in the basement with an illusion and hold his attention for a while as the rest of you sneak past… But I don’t know how we’ll deal with the one outside.”
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