We moved Southwest, away from the construction noise of the boomtown and into the quieter, marshy wetlands that hugged the coast.
The path was narrow, a deer trail cutting through tall reeds that rattled in the wind like dry bones. The air here was heavy with humidity, smelling of peat moss and stagnant water.
It was the smell of deep rot—heavy pockets of swamp gas trapped in the mud that bubbled up
Blooo-POP.
It was a stark contrast to the sawdust and diesel of the town.
Naruto walked behind me, swatting at gnats.
"Are we there yet?" he whined. "My socks are wet. It smells like old eggs."
"Quiet," Kakashi murmured from the front.
He stopped abruptly, raising a hand.
We froze.
The reeds ahead were bent.
A sudden, sharp heat pressed against my right hip. Inside my pouch, buried deep in the pages of my notebook, the silver ring was burning up. It wasn't a gradual warmth; it was a distinct, prickly heat radiating through the leather, reacting to a massive source like a magnet snapping onto iron.
Broken. Someone had crashed through here recently, and in a hurry.
We stepped into a small clearing. It was a campsite, or what was left of one. A fire pit, cold and scattered. A flattened patch of grass where a bedroll had been.
But the most striking thing wasn't what was on the ground. It was what was in the air.
Floating lazily around the clearing were bubbles. Dozens of them. Large, iridescent spheres drifting in the still air, reflecting the grey sky in warped rainbows.
The spheres acted like floating fish-eyes, bending the horizon and stretching the reflection of the reeds into distorted, alien shapes.
They didn't pop when they touched the long, skinny plants.
Looking at them gave me a weird sense of vertigo. Not dizziness, but... recognition. My stomach twisted with a strange, sticky familiarity, like my slug contract was waking up in the back of my brain and telling me this slime wasn't an enemy. It was kin.
They bounced.
"Bubbles?" Naruto squinted, leaning in close to one the size of his head. "Who brings bubbles camping?"
He reached out a finger to poke it.
"Don't!" Anko barked.
Too late.
Pop-hiss.
The bubble burst. A fine mist sprayed Naruto's finger.
"OW!" Naruto yanked his hand back, shaking it violently. "It stings! It burns like... like lemon juice in a paper cut!"
A wisp of pale smoke rose from his fingertip, carrying the stinging, acrid scent of melting skin.
I stepped closer, adjusting my mask. I watched the residue drip from a reed leaf. The leaf turned brown instantly, curling up as the cellular structure collapsed.
"Acid," I noted, my voice muffled... "Suspended inside the skin."
My voice was muffled by the cotton, the humid breath trapped against my skin making the words sound heavy and low.
The words vibrated against the cotton pressed to my lips, the warm humidity of my breath trapped instantly against my face as I analyzed the threat.
I closed my eyes, focusing on the Pulse.
The chakra signature lingering here was faint, but distinct.
I closed my eyes to focus.
The ring in my pouch was shaking now, a frantic, rattling seizure against my hip bone.
It was pulling in two directions: a sharp tug toward the bubbles-
-and a heavy, deafening thrum toward Naruto standing right behind me.
But underneath the metal warning, the air itself felt heavy. Wet. It had the same dense, hydrostatic pressure as the Slug Domain, a frequency that rattled my teeth and made me want to find the source.
It wasn't the sharp, briny feel of the Mist ANBU we saw in town. It was... wet. Heavy. Like a slug moving through mud. It felt dense and slimy, vibrating at a frequency that made my teeth ache.
The air felt wrong, heavy with a crushing weight that pushed against my eardrums.
It felt like Gaara. It felt like Naruto.
Another Jinchūriki.
I realized, a cold sweat breaking out on my neck.
A weird, irrational urge clawed at my chest. I wanted to follow the trail. It wasn't logic; it was a hunger in the blood- a sticky impulse to find the other "monster" and just... be near it.
"Someone left in a hurry," Anko said, crouching by the fire pit. She touched the ashes. "Cold. Maybe six hours ago. They sensed the Hunter-Nin in town and bailed."
Kakashi stared at the bubbles, his single eye narrowing.
I pressed my hand against the pouch to muffle the vibration. It was ignoring Anko completely. Despite the Cursed Seal on her neck, the ring was dead cold to her signature. It only cared about the Beasts.
"Let's keep moving," he said, his voice tight. "We don't want to meet the guy who blows acid bubbles."
We pushed South, leaving the strange, chemical clearing behind.
An hour later, we reached the rendezvous point.
It was a small, secluded inlet hidden by a rocky outcropping. A single boat bobbed in the water: a sturdy, weather-beaten cargo skiff with a rusted engine block bolted to the stern.
Sitting on a crate on the dock was a man.
He looked like he had been carved out of the same grey rock as the cliff. He had dull black hair that hung limp around a face set in a permanent scowl. He wore the standard flak jacket of a Mist-nin, but it was stripped of rank insignia. A jade-green bangle hung loosely on his wrist, clicking against the wood of the crate.
Clik-clack.
The sound was hollow and sharp, a mineral note that cut through the dull lap of the water against the pilings.
Strapped to his back was a cleaver. Not a sword: a slab of iron that looked more like a butcher's tool than a weapon of war.
"You're late," the man grunted. He didn't look up from the whetstone he was running along a kunai.
Shhh-krrrt.
The stone was coarse, biting into the steel with a rhythmic, abrasive friction that set my teeth on edge.
Scritch-scritch.
"Traffic," Anko shrugged, stepping onto the wood. "Refugees clogging the main road. You Ganryū?"
The man stopped sharpening. He looked up. His dark eyes were empty, flat. They were the eyes of a man who had seen something break and hadn't bothered to put the pieces back together.
"Yeah," Ganryū said. His voice was rough, like gravel in a mixer. "You the escorts?"
"New Team 7," Kakashi nodded. "At your service."
Ganryū stood up. He was tall, broad-shouldered. He looked at us: a scarecrow, a loud blonde, a woman eating dango, and a girl in a mask.
He scoffed.
"Konoha sends children," he muttered, spitting into the water. "Typical."
He gestured to the boat with his chin.
"Get in. Tide's turning. And don't touch the cargo. It's fragile."
Naruto hopped into the boat, rocking it dangerously.
"What is it?" Naruto asked, peering at the tarp-covered mounds. "Gold? Weapons? Secret scrolls?"
Ganryū untied the rope, his movements heavy and precise.
"Medical supplies," Ganryū said, his voice dripping with a bitterness I didn't understand. "For the camps in the Land of Forests. Seems like everyone is bleeding these days."
He looked East, toward the open ocean. His hand drifted to the jade bangle on his wrist, rubbing the smooth stone with a thumb that was missing a nail.
"Especially when Iwa is involved," he whispered, so low I barely caught it over the sound of the engine sputtering to life.
A cloud of blue-black smoke erupted from the exhaust port, choking the air with the greasy taste of raw diesel and vibrating the deck plates under my feet until my shins buzzed.
Chug-chug-chug-ROAR.
The boat pulled away from the dock, cutting a white wake through the dark water. I sat near the stern, watching the bubbles from the marsh drift out to sea, popping one by one in the salt spray.