"What? Exterminating some ninja from Kirigakure?" Shinso said to himself, as they dotted swiftly from tree to tree with their various masks being almost the only thing telling them apart. Two groups of nameless and emotionless hunters, sent from the deepest reaches of Konoha. Only these guys don't answer to the Hokage, no... they answer to the most powerful man in Konoha; Lord Danzo. "The Root is what is supporting the tree. No branch is stronger than the root." Shinso had been told ever since his parents were "convinced" to let him join up with Danzos militia. Everyone sings the praise of the great third Hokage "the strongest of them all and taught directly by both the first and the second hokage, knowing every jutsu in the world."

"I hardly think that's possible..." Shinso scoffed, thinking back to how every genin and chunin seemed to adore this old man, who was to direct opposite of what a good ninja was supposed to be: Caring and with an open heart. "But once they turn jonin, the clever ones know, that this is not the man protecting Konoha. The one protecting Konoha is Lord Danzo, the "lowest standing" man in the village!" Shinso mumbled, as he squinted to try and see what was happening in the horizon. They had been tracking their targets for a couple of hours on the outskirts of Konoha close to the land of Rivers, but Shinso was unaware whether or not they were gaining on them and if they had found out they were being tracked or not.

As usual Lord Danzo had said nothing of "why", but only of "how", and seemingly he wanted them all, very, very dead. Because this was not any normal band of ninja, these were all skilled killers, and even though he didn't recognize everyone here, he knew he wasn't the only jonin present. Sending two teams consisting of some of the very best among The Root wasn't unusual, but it just meant that failure was absolutely not an option, and he clenched his fist around his kunai, as they reached a clearing. "Shit! We've reached the river, and their not here!" one of his fellow ANBU members exclaimed angrily, as Shinso watched the deep canyon with the raging river underneath it stretching out as far as they eye could see to both sides, and with at least 30 meters to the other side. "What have we been tracking then..?" Shinso said partly to himself, as he picked up one of the stones from the gravel underneath his feet, studying its shape closely.

"They must have fled to either the left or right! Now, who here was tracking them?!?" he said, looking around, trying to find the scout of the group, noticing the two groups present were only counting seven ANBU ninja. "Where is tha..." he said but abruptly stopped in his tracks, taking half a step ahead, as Shinso saw what he had stepped on. "Tags!!!" Shinso yelled, and jumped for cover on the ground, as the explosive tag his fellow ninja had stepped on exploded with an immense force, flinging Shinso into the bushes, as he heard what sounded like dozens of ninja emerging form the woods on the other side of the clearing. "This can't be?!? They were only supposed to be three!" he said surprised, forcing himself up on his knees, trying to refocus his eyesight and divert his attention to whatever happened around him, instead of the tinnitus in his ears. Shinso peeked out through the bushes. "Sunagakure ninja! But how did they get into this part of The Leaf? Only ones allowed access are... the ones granted access..!"

While most of her comrades kept to the branches of the trees, Ran moved along the forest floor, cloaked and near silent as the ground beneath her softened with her footsteps, muffling them. Like she had every so often, she crouched, put the palm of her hand on the ground, and just listened to what the earth said to her. Before now, she had felt the movement of their quarry. It was subtle, but with the other tracker in their group, a sensor type, they were able to follow the movements of their prey fairly well. She frowned behind her mask. Looking up, she made eye contact with the sensor nin and shook her head. The scout motioned to continue. If there were enemies nearby, they either weren't moving, or they were not in contact with the earth. Maybe that wasn't surprising, since the Mist ninja tended to specialise in water release, and they were coming swiftly upon the Land of Rivers. There were enough places for them to hide, and according to their briefing, by that hated figure, Lord Danzo, these were formidable opponents, no less than one of the legendary Seven Swordsmen and his two closest underlings.

The roar of the river was loud even from the distance, as the small group came to the edge of the canyon, none of them knowing what to expect. She heard another of the team say “who here was tracking them?” It sounded accusatory, or would have done, had they all not been so well-trained to have, or display, any emotion. “I was,” she replied, the porcelain monkey mask unable to show the disapproval and annoyance she felt underneath it. “Be careful. If they seem to have disappeared it could well be a ---” the word “trap” never made it to her lips, as a tag suddenly exploded with great force and the ninja at the front of the party found himself in sudden freefall alongside displaced earth and rocks, heading down, down towards the raging river, his scream unheard above the noise of the rapids. Ran was thrown backwards, landing in the bushes, not far from one of her ANBU comrades. Her head span for a moment, as she lay half dazed. She sat up, and her mask, cracked from left to right in a diagonal fissure, began to crumble away from her face. The ninja next to her was staring intently back through the bushes, and Ran recognised his voice – the accuratory one. She listened. Sunagakure ninjas? Some part of her wanted to get up, announce herself as a Suna nin, and thank them for rescuing her, but that was just a fantasy and Ran knew it. Sneaking up next to him so that she could also peer through the bushes, she verified his words with her own eyes, and, placing her hand to the ground realised just how many were approaching.

A trap. But a flawed trap.

With the explosion on the edge of the canyon, the Sand ninjas could never be certain how many fell to deaths. However many of the Root ANBU they managed to kill, they could never be certain that they had got them all... could never report back to their masters that they had definitely taken out all of the Leaf ninjas.

Her mask crumbled to bits in her hands, revealing all of her face but her eyes and forehead, Ran felt the air against her skin and realised, suddenly, that they were under attack. The forest breeze had changed, someone was using a Wind Release against them. Quickly Ran signed. Their only way out was escape, their only escape was through the earth, and the only one she could take with her was this ANBU agent next to her. The ground softened beneath them, sucking the two down into the rocks. She grabbed Shinso by the arm, and they both were swallowed up by the ground. There was no time to tell him to hold his breath. He was a ninja so likely he was always prepared for anything, anyway...

The Hiding Like a Mole technique sucked them down, and Ran paddled through rock made soft by her jutsu, keeping hold of Shinso and hoping that he wouldn't get stuck or drown. The quickest route out was the safest, and she dragged the two of them out halfway down the sheer drop of the ravine, onto a small ledge that jutted out just wide enough for a human body, precariously over the white water.

But Shinso quickly realized the fact, that he was not the only one having been blown all the way over here, and a blue/green haired ninja, with a face covered by her ANBU monkey mask sat up besides him. He wasn't sure he had seen her before in the Root, but being a fellow victim of the trap, she was to be trusted and certainly not a traitor. But Shinso was sure someone was, as this kind of ambush was impossible to stage, unless someone knew exactly where and when they were going. Could it be the tracking ninja? Shinso scouted the battlefield. No, that was his corpse over there. If so, they didn't care for their ally.

But suddenly Shinso noticed a gust of wind, cracking his teammates mask, as Shinso protected his own with his arm. This wasn't ordinary wind, that much was obvious with all the chakra infused into it and the ability to destroy porcelain. Shinso quickly raised his hands to create a defense water wall and concentrated. "Tiger, snake rat..." but didn't get to finish his jutsu, before his he felt his arm being grabbed, and his body body drawn into the ground beneath. "What the... earth type..?" He exclaimed, and just managed to see, that it was his teammate, trying to drag him underground, most likely because she thought that putting up a fight against this many was futile. And just before his head got sucked down, he took a deep breath, feeling how he was dragged through the various layers of ground, unable to tell where they were going, having to trust this unknown comrade.

But it wasn't long before he felt himself being drawn outside again, ending up on a small ledge more or less half way down, being able to see the roaring river down below, and still hearing the noise of the different jutsu released above them as he looked up, then down and then on his comrade. "Thank you. I think you made the right choice. My jutsu would have given us away and made us unable to escape, and judging from the sound of it I'd rather be here." Shinso said before looking down into the white water, as if preparing himself. "But no doubt the only way is down, wouldn't you say that?" he asked rhetorically. "I will ask you to hold your breath, because the next thing you will experience is water..." Shinso said, as he put his left hand on his comrades shoulder. "Shuga Fuin no Jutsu!" Shinso chanted, as he saw how the blue/green haired girl warped and got sucked in through his left arm, causing a black mark resembling her silhouette to appear on his left arm, just beneath his shoulder. "And here goes the second act." Shinso said, feeling the pain from having absorbed something with a large chakra into himself, as he to a deep breath and snatched a kunai from his pocket before stretching out his left arm, holding it vertically over the ledge. "Soshi Fuin no Jutsu!" Shinso exclaimed as he himself warped and got absorbed into the kunai, as it dropped towards the roaring river beneath, the kunai plunging through the surface.

Having the kunai absorbing the surface tension, Shinso said the words to himself "Soshi Fuin no Jutsu, Kai!" as he emerged a couple of meters under the surface, and immediately released the first Fuin no Jutsu, warping the girl out from his right hand, grabbing her by the waist, intending to swim towards the surface or at least show her the way, as the technique usually disorientates the living subject if not used to it. As Shinso emerged above able to breath the free air again, he saw how the powerful undercurrent had already carried them quite some distance away from the point he dropped the kunai. "Well, got any ideas now?" Shinso asked her, unable to see further than the river bend and the tall, vertical canyon sides.

Ran, perched on the ledge, looked up. Although she could not see the members of the ambush, her eyes flashed a glare in their general direction. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath. For now, though, she was safe. They were safe. She looked down at the man she had brought through the earth with her. There wasn't much about him to give away his identity except for the animal mask he wore that was different to all the others. He was intact and unhurt and seemed in no way troubled by his unannounced trip through the rock. “Hn, no need to thank me,” she replied, “We're comrades, right?” Her tone was neutral, almost mockingly so. What difference had being comrades ever made in the Root? They followed orders, and if the orders said save your comrade, they would save their comrades, if they said kill your comrade, they would kill him. It was all on the whims and mysterious motives of Lord Danzo. Ran had acted on instinct, dragging this man into the ground with her, but she certainly did not regret it. Whoever those Sand shinobi were, and whoever sent them, it was better to be with a comrade than alone when she sought answers, no matter how fickle and tenuous the bonds of their loyalty.

She was about to ask the dark-haired man his name, when he made a suggestion for the next move. It was fine with her - evade capture first, ask questions later. Efficient. She nodded. “Down is best, for now.” Shinso had the foresight to offer her what she hadn't given him, a warning. Aside from obeying it, and taking in a lungful of fresh air, Ran had no idea what happened next. A horrible lurching sensation of falling, and then she was underwater, completely disoriented, yet managing by survival instinct to keep her breath held until she was hauled out of the water by her waist onto the river bank. Her head swam violently, and she fought to clear her vision as she knelt on hands and knees by the side of the river. She felt nausea rise in her throat and ended up retching over the side of the river, until her stomach was sufficiently relieved of its contents. After that, she felt a lot better. “What … the hell … was that?” she asked the black-haired shinobi, after rinsing her mouth with ice cold river water.

She scooched around to face him, still on her knees. Whatever he had done was effective, even if extremely unpleasant. They were away from the ambush site, and on the opposite side of the river. The Sand shinobi would have difficulty following them down here, but it wouldn't be hard to spot them... from the air for example. “We should get away from here … but first...” Ran's hands moved rapidly in a series of signs, and the rocks around them shifted and lurched overhead in a wave of stone, covering the two of them in a small dome of rock. With a bit of finesse, Ran directed her chakra to make the outside of the little bubble look as though it was just a pretty big boulder like many of the others that lined this stretch of the river. “Good terrain for us. Not so good if they have Water Release users maybe,” she stated, giving a small smile as she ran her hand over the inside of the dome, pleased that luck had delivered them into her own elemental specialty, and that her own skills were useful here. “So, now we can talk. What's your name, masked man?

“Those Sand ninjas... I don't suppose I'm alone in thinking there's something funny going on, right? The only question is, whose ambush was it. The Mist? Or … someone else.” She flashed him a look, trying to gauge his reaction. If she said she suspected their own people, maybe out of loyalty to Konoha or Danzo, he would kill her. “I think we should wait till they've stopped looking. Go back. Pick one or two of them off and find out what they wanted.”

"Don't concern yourself too much about that technique. I owe it fully to Lord Danzo and thus I consider it his. But if you must know, it was a sealing technique, where i temporarily sealed you inside me and me inside my kunai, dropping it into the river. Nothing special if you ask me, but can come in handy for me in certain situations." Shinso said, thinking he already told her way too much, while continuing to scout for sand ninjas following them. A kunai is difficult to see dropping, but the question is whether or not they saw them swimming to the shore, Shinso thought. "Chances are that they don't know we're here, as they were still fighting when I dropped the kunai, but we don't know for sure." Shinso said, not taking his eyes away from the ledge from where they were ambushed.

Apparently the girl didn't fancy staying here forever, and again without warning, she used another earth technique to conceal their whereabouts. "Again you act swiftly and without hesitation." Shinso remarked, though the comment was two sided. He did think she had taken the right choices until now, but didn't like anyone just acting without giving it a proper thought or warning first. He considered it juvenile and believed it could endanger the teammates of the reckless ninja doing so. But Shinso rarely voices such matters, as he chose to compensate for such things by hanging back a couple of feet more, securing him extra time to dodge, if things went wrong. Also this was hardly the time for such trifle matters.

Water users? She seemed to find that remark funny, though Shinso couldn't really figure out why. And talk, in this situation? But granted, the mission had to be reevaluated so communication was important, though exchanging names and pleasantries seemed out of place. "I'm Uchiha Madara." Shinso said and looked her dead in the eyes, examining her reaction to his provocation, deciding he could just as well tell her. "Hmm... how did you end up in The Root being this reckless and curious?" Shinso asked, removing his lion shaped mask in order to wipe his glasses dry. "I'm Tamazaki Shinso, and I guess this is the part where I ask your name also?" he said, though still not too keen about this kind of small talk.

"There is definitely something funny going on. We've been ambushed, and Lord Danzo won't take kindly to this kind of failure. It could have been someone within the team, the tracker ninja being the most obvious, though unfortunately for that theory he is dead." Shinso said, satisfied that the conversation were back to the matter of hand. "Obviously it was the sand ninja's ambush, but you're saying you think someone else is behind this? As far as I know, the bloody mist have usually never had any real allies. And also I never as much as felt the faintest of chakra signatures, which could indicate we were tracking some ninja, but I don't know what that means, though I'm all for finding out. How do you reckon, we get back up there the easiest? Do we just run up the side of the wall." Shinso asked.

She hadn't actually expected a run down of what the technique involved, but since the guy had provided it... well, she was both impressed and wary. This man was some direct apprentice of Lord Danzo himself? In that case, she'd have to be especially on her guard around him. Such a technique had it's uses and she couldn't help thinking of how useful it would be to send a ninja sealed inside some innocuous object into enemy territory to carry out an assassination. It meant you could sneak into practically anyway... seal yourself into some paper and slide yourself under a door... send yourself as a gift to a nobleman, then when he opens it, spring out and cut his throat.

"Again you act swiftly and without hesitation." Did she detect some kind of disapproval in that comment? Well, she could expect snobbishness from someone who had been a chosen favourite of Lord Danzo. “Hesitation gets you killed,” she replied. What was he expecting, exactly? A full conference? Messenger hawks back to base? For the enemy to just wait around while an elaborate strategy was mapped out? Swift action was the way of the ninja. What was it that her teacher had once said? “Improvisation is the cornerstone of ninjutsu.” It was as true now as ever. Then again, maybe she was reading things into the guy's words that weren't even there. He was, after all, an emotionless drone like all the Root ninjas. It probably didn't even occur to him to think about anything outside of mission specifics.

"I'm Uchiha Madara." She snorted, smiled at him insincerely with her head slightly tilted. “Ha ha. Cute. Well, I don't know you well enough to call you 'anata', so I might just start calling you 'Shishi' (Lion)” She watched him, as he took off the mask she had just threatened to name him after, revealing the face beneath. He was handsome enough, although, like most Root-trained shinobi, his human face had about as much expression as the mask did. The next part took her by surprise, and she frowned a little. Tamazaki Shinso? Tamazaki? Was that his actual name? His full name? His birth name? Now wasn't the time to question why he had such a ridiculously long name, where he got it from, or why he was still using it. As for hers, “Ran.”

“Sand Ninjas wouldn't be in Fire Country without permission. So either they are trying to spark off a war either on their own or allied with the Mist, or they think they can get away with taking out two specialist ANBU units. Or, they had permission to be here and they abused it, or permission was given for this ambush. Or potentially it's some kind of test to weed out the weak and useless in the Root and only you and I are on the way to passing it. That's too many possibilities.

“As for our supposed targets, I definitely felt movement, and from the patterns, it was enemy shinobi... but like we were told, it was only three people, and after a while, it stopped. I guess if there are Mist shinobi out there we'll just have to watch our backs.” She thought for a moment or two about his suggestion. “Run up the canyon wall? Well, we could, assuming they aren't still looking for us. Otherwise we could tunnel through the earth, and suck one or two of them into the ground with us when we're close enough. I'm open to suggestions if you've got any.” As she spoke, Ran checked the contents of her various pouches and weapon stashes, to check for damage from the water. Almost everything seemed fine … a bit of water leakage into her tin of paper explosive tags, and it was hard to tell if poison might have washed off some of her kunai but nothing drastic.

"Hmm... So you say actually did feel the chakra of the three enemies we were hunting? Along with the tracker ninja being dead, this supports the theory that we're dealing with some kind of ambush no one in the group had seen coming. But peculiar to think, that the tracker ninja hadn't felt anything from the ninja who attacked us, but i suppose you didn't either..." Shinso said and scratched his chin while he swung a kunai around his index finger, thinking about what possibilities they had. "The only thing, that makes sense, is them having a ninja who's a lot better than any of us at sensing chakra, but maybe this is their weak spot? Sensor ninja are often weak and stupid, because they hardly ever get within 100 feet of actual combat. They see it coming and thus they think it's safe for them to stray a bit from the squad." Shinso said, poking the kunai into the ground while thinking. "If we could just get close to the sensor ninja without that guy noticing us, it would be piece of cake taking him down. But even if we do manage to take him by surprise, there might be other sensor ninjas up there, so we'll have to be swift and cunning." Shinso said and glanced at Ran. "I know Danzo and he primarily takes in shinobi who have some kind of special ability, which could prove a trump card for The Root. You wouldn't happen to possess anything that could be helpful right now, do you?" Shinso asked with a wry smile, as if he had a hunch that her ability to sense chakra didn't quite stop at that.

"But maybe we are safer to them on by surprise now most battle have seized, as some may be scattered looking for friends and foes. Do you think you could make the earth jutsu you did before and take us to the top? I am willing to seal myself inside a shuriken once more, and if you throw it at the target, i can unseal myself when it hits and bind him using my wire strings." Shinso said with a wry smile, tightening up a string between his hands. "Just say when, and I seal myself into a shuriken. As long as you hit your mark, I'll do the same. Wires are kind of my speciality."

Ran listened to Shinso voicing his thoughts on the ambush, then shook her head. “I can't sense chakra, only movement. We had a dedicated scout on our team for that, although … clearly whatever techniques they have were able to disrupt his senses. He was the first one to die,” Ran let out a small philosophical sigh on the nature of the dog eat dog world of shinobi life, but then shrugged. “We were outmanouvred. But that's not to say we can't get the drop on them. Assuming they are moving along the ground, or even on something attached to the ground, I should be able to feel their movement, though we can't rely on that being exact.” Sitting cross-legged under the dome, Ran watched Shinso play with his kunai before stabbing it into the ground, a ruthless yet considered gesture. She too put her mind to work thinking of how they could best counter-ambush the Sand ninjas, but she looked up from that knife to Shinso's face as he asked her if she had any helpful special abilities. “If I do, you'll know it when you see it. Maybe,” she replied, raising an eyebrow as she returned a cynical smile back at him.

She considered his strategy for a minute or two, once again impressed by the variety of uses his sealing jutsu could be put to. “It's a good plan. But let me add something. I can combine two earth techniques that will make this easier. Firstly, construct a tunnel that will lead us underneath where we suspect a lone Sand ninja will be, based on where I can feel the movement. That will be easier for us to travel inside rather than digging through the earth, and it will provide a place to put our Sand ninja once we have him in our grasp. Once we're nearby, you seal yourself into the shuriken, and I will dig up through the earth using that technique you saw before. Once I'm up, I'll throw you – in the shuriken – at the target. Once I have line of sight I will have their exact location. You will subdue them, however you wish, as long as we can still interrogate them afterwards. Once you have them, I can drop you and the target back into the tunnels below by turning the ground to sand beneath you. You'll have to make sure the enemy shinobi is fully restrained from using any jutsu as Sand shinobi plus sand could be a bad combination. Once everyone is back in the tunnels, it will be up to you, I'll be all out of chakra by then.

“However, once we're in a position to ask questions, then you might get to see something interesting, regarding my 'special ability'.”

Ran stood, and tore a length from the hem of her cloak, tying it over her face to replace her broken mask. Only her eyes remained visible. “Are we good to go, Shishi?”

Once the plan had been agreed, Ran began her work. Becoming very still and calm, she faced towards the river, and made the series of hand signs that activated the Earth Release Labyrinth technique. For their purposes it didn't need to be fancy and full of twists, turns and traps, just to get them from here to there. The rock beneath the river was hard and densely formed, and tunnelling beneath it was difficult, but in time, Ran managed to make a passable tunnel, a little on the small side, and not hugely stable, to take her and Shinso across, and up by sloping stairways gradually towards the surface. She stopped, putting bare hands against the rock and feeling for movement above, then continuing on with her tunnel, now horizontal to the forested ground above them, but heading onwards in a twisting pattern as she tried to follow the faint sensations nearer to the people on the surface who were creating them. During this time she was silent, concentrating, but after the fourth of fifth stop, Ran smiled, looked to Shinso, and pointed up. “There's one up there, alone, and I think, wounded,” she whispered. Their movement had been slow and irregular, and it was hard to pinpoint exactly, but as far as she could tell, they were definitely alone. “Time to put yourself in here,” she put her gloves back on, got out a shuriken and held it out on the palm of her hand.

While Shinso activated his sealing technique, Ran took the time to open up the tunnel in front of them, a little wider, and close it off behind with a simple wall that they could easily bash through if they needed to, but that their prey was unlikely to notice. Ran was getting tired, her chakra reserves weren't going to be able to take too much more moving quantities of earth around, but all she needed to do now was get to the surface. She holstered the Shinso-shuriken, making sure to note its exact location, before she completed another quick hand sign, turning the earth above her to soft sand and letting her “swim” easily through the earth to the surface. She emerged in woodland, and instantly hopped into some nearby undergrowth, peering around for a sign of the shinobi she had felt earlier. Ran had to do a little searching, she hadn't emerged particularly nearby, but she heard breathing, heavier than normal, a little hiss and a quiet swearword uttered, and as she peered around a tree, saw a Sand shinobi, cloaked and with the turban-like robes that the Sunagakure ANBU wore instead of masks concealing her face. She was not looking in peak condition, her clothing was dirty and ripped, and she was attempting to tie a splint made from a branch to her leg that looked quiet obviously broken. She was so absorbed in her task, and trying to do it quietly, that she hadn't noticed Ran sneaking up on her. Her team-mates probably left her behind, thought Ran, or else she just couldn't keep up with them. Well, good. It meant that Ran's own people had at least inflicted some casualties, that even taken by surprise the Root ANBU weren't totally inept.

Ran took out the Shinso-shuriken, gave it a glance, then threw. It was all up to Shinso from here, although there wasn't too much to challenge him, except for one thing. Hunkering back down into the bushes immediately, she already had her hands on the ground. Once Shinso had immobilised her, all three of them would be sinking into the ground, and down into Ran's tunnel below.

It seemed the details had been agreed upon, and Shinso nodded at Ran. Time to start the preparations. Ran was to do the heavy work with the setup and bring them on top of the ledge using her earth labyrinth jutsu which would obviously drain her of a lot of chakra. Once there, the deal was to throw shinso at a lone target and for Shinso to immobilize him or her. This seemed easy enough though these things hardly ever go as planned - and especially when you work with someone you haven't been working with before. It was not that Shinso was skeptical about Ran's abilities, he had seen enough to know, that she was skilled and strong, and maybe even stronger than himself. But when Shinso was going to seal himself into that shuriken, he crossed a border than not even trust would usually have him cross. He had never sealed himself inside anything while someone knew. Because once inside that thing, he was exactly as vulnerable as the object he sealed himself inside was. But he wasn't doing this because of trust, but because it was a desperate situation - for both of them. This was both his motivation and guarantee.

Ran's attention to detail when constructing the tunnel was meticulous to say the least. Her silence told everything Shinso needed to know about her concentration level, and even though this tunnel wasn't particularly stable, it seemed to hold and lead them in the right direction. Well, Shinso guessed they were going in the right direction, as he had no sense of direction inside the pitch black tunnel, and after having crawled under the river the only thing he knew, was that they were ascending upwards and were going to reach the sunlight again at some point. But after having stopped a few times, still silent, she turned to Shinso and told him, that there was possibly one right above them. "I hope you can count." Shinso said thinking he did not want to take on more than one at a time, though actually pretty amazed by her sensing skills. "Just a moment, and I'll be ready." Shinso said and took a deep breath as he received the shuriken she gave him and inspected it with his hands. "It's unusual I seal myself into anything that is not mine and even more unusual I give it back to someone who knows I'm in there." he said and paused. "Whatever you do, don't throw it into fire, right?" Shinso said as the last thing before he sealed himself inside the Shuriken, and disappeared from the tunnel in a flash.

Being sealed inside the shuriken did not hamper his mind, though time always did seem to flow differently in there. As if it was not actually something which influenced the world inside the seal. But none the less, Shinso was able to feel, grasp and even somehow see things outside while sealed inside things, though the feeling was more of a hunch than a sense and the seeing was more like a blurry, twisted image of reality, as if he was watching the world outside with composition of the element he was sealed inside as a filter. Glass would be extremely clear, while iron made for poor visibility, but because of less diffraction from light, a lot easier to discern objects when moving with great speed.

And just when he somehow expected it, an uncertain amount of time after he noticed light outside, he left the chakra signature of Ran, and was carving through the air, and just in that given moment, Shinso released himself from the shuriken mid air. Simultaneously he released a wire string with a kunai tied to the end of it out of his right arm, aiming for the right side of the targeted ninja, as he himself was moving to the left side holding the other end of the wire string. The shuriken was aimed flawlessly it seemed, as it hit the ninja in the shoulder distracting him or her from the wire string approaching the ninja's throat, as Shinso, still in forwards motion, flew past the ninja to the left, sending the ninja tied to a nearby tree by the throat, as Shinso cast another wire string in the opposite direction, binding the upper body and arms of the ninja. The plan worked. Not perfectly, but it was enough. Aiming for the throat was the right tactic, as the ninja would instinctively throw his or her hands up to guard teh throat, effectively ruling out any opportunity of counterattacking or screaming, leaving Shinso to make the next move, whether it be further binding or outright killing.

This ninja was lucky, it being just binding. Well, lucky was maybe not the word, seeing as if she had already broken her leg, the half done shin laying a couple of meters from the tree she was now bound to, desperately trying to breath despite of the wire strings around her throat making that difficult. Also the pain from the shuriken wound to her shoulder probably wasn't making it easier. Shinso caught himself observing her struggling for a short moment. What kind of feeling was this? Was this what you called "pity"? Shinso shook his head. No, she was just an enemy and her mistakes had lead her to this. "Today is not your lucky day. How the rest of it is going to be, you decide." Shinso said as he swiftly ripped of her Sunagakure bandages cloaking her head, tying them around her head and mouth, before releasing the wire strings around her throat, binding her hands in front of her with that, before releasing the other wire string, tying it around her torso as an extra precaution. Apart from the twitching of pain when Shinso thew her up on his shoulder to carry and her, no doubt from the broken leg, she seemed incapable of resisting, and Shinso hurried back to Ran behind the bushes, bowing down on the knee with the captured girl over his shoulder. "Let's go!" Shinso said, hoping Ran had preserved some chakra to get them underground. "Let's see if this half dead girl has something to say."