More Precious Than My Life

"My intentions of coming here was never mainly about the herb. The Daimyo of Shibata, Lord Shimoru, had his suspicions of Terazuma, the village head of Amakura. Weapons trade was dropping yet Terazuma kept on asking for more money from the lord, with rebuilding Amakura as a reason. It has been three years and even though there was a slight improvement, Shimoru-sama felt it didn't do the money he had given there any justice."

Kumokura and Kakashi sat at a riverbank as Naruto hunted for fish in the river. Sasuke was nowhere to be seen, but he had wanted to hunt for some rabbits, while Sakura lie asleep not far from where the two were seated. The incidents that had occurred were very exerting and she had begged for rest.

It had been two days since they killed Bakekumo inside the Shibata Mountains. The lava pits were very convenient and there was no clean-up task to do later on. Kakashi had given Lord Shimoru the head of Bakekumo as a proof she had been killed.

"So everything was a cover-up for Terazuma amassing a military power of his own. Quite brilliant." Kumokura shook her head. "But I still can't connect the idea with the Goddess' Fountains."

Kakashi stared at her. "The hot springs are not only therapeutically valuable. Even you know of its real worth."

Kumokura's eyes flew wide. "What – oh, do you mean – I never thought of the springs that way before."

"Yes," he nodded. "Imagine if these soldiers carry the waters along with them to war. The water heals wounds in a second and rejuvenates the tired instantly, making the entire army virtually indefatigable machines of warfare."

"That explains a lot," was all she could say.

"According to his journals, two years back Terazuma took a sudden interest in herbal remedies that took him to discover this root. All the money he asked for must have gone into researches for military purposes." He took out several papers and showed it to Kumokura. "Look at these."

Kumokura did and nodded in awe. "It's a design for water flasks. It's ingenious. Soldier pills… oh my, these are actually very frightening. Regeneration pills combined with the water – this is very frightening."

"These pills could have been actually better than the present soldier and regeneration pills even the medics in my village had ever developed. You can carry a huge amount of the spring water inside these flasks. Both are very easy to use. One needs no intelligence to operate these. All they would need is the urge to kill."

She pushed the papers back to Kakashi. "If you didn't come here, Kakashi, I don't know what could have happened. Maybe by now I'm already dead and they would have the army ready to strike Shibata – or other countries."

Kakashi stared at her, then at the papers. With a simple hand seal, he started a small fire and gathered the papers together and burnt them. "Hey, look on the bright side."

"Such as?"

He pointed to a very wet Naruto emerging from the river and Sasuke who seemed to have appeared from nowhere. "Here comes Naruto with fresh fish and Sasuke with some rabbits. Get the fire burning and the drinks ready."

Kakashi got up and Kumokura raised a questioning eyebrow. "And where do you think you're going?"

He smiled abashedly. "I'm already late for a meeting with a friend at the village. One thing though," Kakashi added. "When I killed Bakekumo…"

Kumokura closed her eyes briefly as her lips curved up in a slight smile. It was sad and beautiful at the same time. "Kakashi, I have no hard feelings. Although she was my sister, her evil was just too much not to be contained in any other way."

"A fuda would have helped," Kakashi suggested.

Kumokura shook her head slowly, her long fine hair moved silkily along. "My teacher (the late Aburame Sannin) taught me that fuda works only if the receiver is willing to leave all of his/her old ways. The fuda is only a tool. It is the vessel that must do everything to repent and begin anew." She paused and opened her eyes. "Bakekumo was not that kind of – entity who had all that."

Kakashi shrugged. "It's inevitable, though, that she had to die." With that he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"You're late, Kakashi."

He bowed low. "Please excuse me. I had to meet a friend beforehand."

There came a grunt. "I hope that you have what you claim to have."

Kakashi took out a thick sealed envelope. "This is it, my lord." After a pause he said cautiously: "My lord, pardon me, but that envelope is marked RESEARCH NOTES, and I doubt if they are of any use."

"Why do you think so?"

"Well, if the envelope contains what it claims to be, then they all are merely research notes, bones no one can make sense of."

"But give it to someone who is well-versed in bones and he will be able to rebuild the whole skeleton. That is good enough for me."

Kakashi watched as the envelope exchanged hands. He gave it to a wrinkled old man – probably his aide – who checked the seal with a magnifying glass. After a while the old man nodded.

"Intact. I should have known you're trustworthy and a good investment." He and the aide stood up while Kakashi remained seated. "My man will send a cheque to your village. Fifty thousand, as promised."

"Yes, my lord," Kakashi whispered, listening as the sliding door closed behind him. Then he remembered the papers he had burnt at the riverbank, and smiled to himself.

"Yes, Kakashi," he thought as he prepared himself to disappear, "it's a small price to pay when you have the chance to avert an entire disaster."

Kakashi had his own doubts when, after he had accepted the mission, he had been required to have a personal audience with his client. It turned out that while everything about Terazuma initially was correct – that he had been demanding a lot of money yet nothing came of it – his client's depth of knowledge concerning Terazuma and Bakekumo was rather puzzling.

Terazuma was never careless: he had always covered his tracks and left nothing out. Even the letter he had purloined wasn't easy to find. All the details Shimoru-sama had supplied to Kakashi would not be possible if the daimyo had not had a spy inside Terazuma's organization.

Along with the original mission, his client had one more task to add – within the chaos following the death of Terazuma and his partner, Bakekumo, he was to purloin the research notes Terazuma had been keeping and gave it to him. A simple plan, because nobody knew of its existence besides his partner, who conveniently would eventually die, one way or the other.

Opening his eye, he found he was standing under a tree. A river flowed not far from where he was, and already his stomach was rumbling with the smell of roasting fish and rabbit flesh. Kumokura and Sakura were deciding on which spice would go for which meat, while Sasuke and Naruto eyed each other, competing on whose meat would cook first.

Yes, such a small price to pay for something like this to remain the way it should be, he thought, watching the papers that now had became embers underneath the burning dry woods, roasting the fish and rabbits. The papers in the daimyo's hands were really Terazuma's, but they're not what he is after.

"Hey, sensei!" Sakura called to him, breaking his thoughts. "Come on here! Kumokura-san has some sake for you!"

Although he didn't drink sake (at least not in public), Kakashi nodded and walked toward them.

"Those rabbits look tasty!" he said to Sasuke. "Fat and juicy."

"But – but –" Naruto began. "Fish is good for you! Fish have no fat and more delicious than rabbits!"

"Naruto!" Sakura said, irritated. "SHUT UP!"

Later when everyone had their fill of rabbit and fish, Sasuke turned to Kumokura. He had some reserves before, but now Sasuke felt certain apathy to her.

"What did you do to us when you put us all inside those cocoon?"

Kumokura, all loosened up by the sake, giggled before replying: "Oh! Well, you guys looked so tired, so I thought putting you guys to sleep was the best thing to do while waiting for further orders from Kakashi."

"But, according to Sakura-chan," Naruto chimed in, "your spider silk is supposed to be poisoned!"

"Yeah, Kumokura-san," Sakura echoed Naruto. "I read that spider monsters – no offence – produce poisonous silks to defend themselves. It's supposed to be very deadly to human while the spider itself if immune to the effects."

Again Kumokura giggled. "Whoa, Sakura-chan! Kakashi wasn't kidding when he told me you're the brightest ninja." Sakura nodded humbly as her cheeks reddened. "But don't believe everything a book tells you."

"So what happened?" Sasuke pressed on.

Kumokura smiled. "You must have heard about my oath. The fuda inside me was crafted in such a way that I will not be able to produce harmful silk. But it will become harmful to those who try to hurt me. Besides, I think living around the healing hot springs gave my silk additional bonus. I can heal myself faster by spinning a cocoon around my body. That was what I did to you."

Sasuke nodded and returned to his spot and stare blankly at space. Naruto went back to teasing Sakura while Kakashi and Kumokura looked on.

"You're drinking too much, Kumokura."

"I don't do this everyday, okay." She sipped again. "Don't try to stop me."

After punching Naruto in the face Sakura turned to Kakashi. "Sensei, you must help me get rid of Naruto's insolent face. I can't stand him!"

"Well," Kakashi said, shrugging his shoulders, "I can't, because after all, you're his team mates, and whether you'd like it or not, you have to stay this way until you became individual chuunins."

Sakura's eyes widened and she whined. "You mean, almost my entire teenage years? That's horrible! Then – then, I'd have to do missions with him! Oh - !" Quickly her eyes changed. "Say, Kakashi-sensei, speaking about missions…"

"Yes?"

Her eyes became very sneaky and Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "What kind of mission ranking do you suppose this is?"

"What? No – no way. This mission was mine from the start. And remember that I didn't invite you three to come with me. You came along!"

"Oh, but without us, the mission would have failed," Naruto chipped in, rubbing a huge bump on his head. "Sensei, you have to include us! We were important in this mission!"

"We were indispensable!" Sakura added, proud of her vocabulary.

"I have to agree, sensei," Sasuke said, standing behind the two as they gave way for him. "After all, we did much of the work, while you just did some work backstage."

Even Kumokura joined in, giggling madly. "Without them, Kakashi, you would've failed this mission!"

"What do you say, sensei!"

Kakashi stared around unwillingly. "Ah… um…"

THE END

Author's Note: Finally, it's done! I thank you, dear readers for your kind words and support, and to a friend (you know who you are) thanks for pushing me so far. See where it gets me? Maybe I'll have another inspiration during the New Year's Eve...