Chapter 38: The Price of a Lion
The earth groaned under the systematic violence of the Earth Release ninjutsu. Great slabs of soil and stone were severed from the bedrock, floating upward in a grotesque mockery of gravity. Momiji's carefully cultivated network of Blood Thorns, his subterranean senses and anchors, was being surgically excised. Each severed root sent a phantom pang through his connection, a loss of vitality that tightened the knot of desperation in his non-beating heart.
They are methodical. They are patient. They will carve this hill down to my coffin.
The Lion's voice, cold and pragmatic, echoed in his memory. 'Dig three feet into the ground…' They were prepared for a siege measured in days. Time, the one advantage he thought he had under the moon, was now a slow noose tightening. His energy wasn't infinite. The Ghost Qi that fueled his art and his very existence was tied to his stamina, to the flesh-and-blood energy he had stored. The last major feeding was… too long ago.
The plan to wait them out was ash. The new plan, to use their focus on excavation to launch a desperate counter-attack, was taking shape—a sharp, dangerous thorn of intent.
Above, the operation continued. Yamato and the Earth Release user worked in grim tandem, their chakra sawing through another layer of earth. The floating slabs revealed cross-sections of soil, stone, and the mangled, crimson remains of thorn networks, now oozing dark fluid that smelled of iron and decay.
"Slow and steady," the Lion instructed, his eyes fixed on the expanding pit. "Don't give him a tunnel to exploit. Isolate the area."
The Water and Wind ninja flanked the diggers, their attention split between the deepening excavation and the dark tree line beyond. They were professionals, but even professionals could develop a tunnel vision of their own.
Thirty feet below, Momiji stopped trying to rebuild his thorn network. Instead, he began to cannibalize it. The thorns protecting his form dissolved, their substance drawn inward. He pooled every drop of energy, every ounce of the sanguine power of his Blood Demon Art, into a single, dense mass around his core. He was making himself smaller, harder to sense, converting mass into potential energy. He was becoming a seed. A bomb.
The earth above him shook again. Another layer was peeled back. Daylight—moonlight, filtered through the floating dust—was getting closer.
Now.
He didn't launch upward. He went lateral. Using the last of the dissolving thorns as pistons, he propelled himself not toward the surface, but through the compacted soil at the very bottom of the excavation zone, away from the epicenter of their digging. It was agonizingly slow, a worm's desperate burrow. Dirt pressed in on him from all sides. But he moved, a few inches, then a foot, guided by his fading perception of the life forces above.
On the surface, the Earth Release ninja paused, frowning. "The residual chakra signature… it's shifting. Faintly. West-northwest, along the bedrock."
The Lion's head snapped in that direction. "He's trying to flank the excavation perimeter. Tenzō!"
Yamato was already moving. He slammed his palms onto the ground at the pit's edge. "Wood Release: Wood Dragon Technique!"
From the soil at the indicated bearing, not a giant tree, but a thick, serpentine root of polished wood erupted. It didn't attack blindly. It weaved through the earth just below the surface, a seismic probe, seeking the vibration of movement.
Momiji felt it coming—a dense, chakra-rich presence boring through the earth toward him like a seeking missile. He had seconds. He compressed the pooled energy around him further, then released it not outward, but in a controlled, directional burst behind him.
BOOM.
A geyser of soil and shattered stone exploded from a point ten meters behind his actual location. The force was impressive, spraying debris high into the air.
"There!" the Wind ninja shouted, unleashing a Vacuum Bullet barrage into the heart of the explosion.
It was the distraction he needed. As all eyes and attacks focused on the decoy blast, Momiji made his final, vertical move. He erupted from the ground not at the pit, nor at the explosion site, but at the point exactly between them—where the Root formation was thinnest.
The earth shattered. A figure clad in tattered, earth-stained clothes, skin glowing with crimson maple patterns, shot into the open air. His eyes were pure pools of bloody light, fixed on his target: the Water Release ninja, the one controlling the battlefield's moisture, the linchpin for quenching any inferno.
He didn't form hand signs. He didn't shout a technique name. His body was the technique. From every pore, a storm of hair-thin, razor-sharp crimson threads erupted—a localized blizzard of Blood Thorns aimed not to entangle, but to eviscerate.
The Water ninja was good. A wall of water surged from a scroll at his hip, intercepting the first wave. But the thorns weren't solid projectiles; they were semi-liquid, extensions of Momiji's will. They pierced the water shield like needles through cloth, slowing but not stopping.
"Protect Haku!" the Lion roared, already spitting a stream of fire to vaporize the thorn-cloud.
But Momiji was already in motion, a crimson blur closing the distance. He wasn't trying to kill with the thorns. He was creating chaos, a screen. His real weapon was his hand, fingers elongated into black-taloned claws, reaching for the Water ninja's throat.
A wooden spike shot from the ground, aiming to impale Momiji mid-lunge. Yamato.
Momiji twisted in the air, an impossible contortion, but the spike grazed his side, tearing a gash. No blood flowed—only a wisp of dark vapor. The pain was irrelevant. His claw kept reaching.
The Water ninja, "Haku," abandoned defense for evasion, leaping back. It was what Momiji expected. He'd never intended to catch him. The true target was the one who had just exposed himself to launch that fire stream.
The Lion.
As the fire breath cut through the thorn-mist, Momiji changed trajectory. He dropped like a stone, then used a whip-like thorn from his heel to slingshot himself laterally, directly into the Lion's blind spot as the older ninja finished his jutsu.
The Lion's eyes widened. He was a veteran, his reflexes honed by decades in Root's darkness. He started a substitution jutsu, his hands a blur.
He was a fraction too slow.
Momiji's taloned hand didn't strike for a killing blow. It clamped onto the Lion's outstretched forearm with crushing force. The moment of contact was all Momiji needed.
Blood Demon Art: Crimson Bramble – Life Vine.
Thin, invasive filaments of blood-energy shot from Momiji's palm, piercing the Lion's skin and burrowing into his bloodstream. It wasn't an attack meant to cause external damage. It was a parasitic invasion, a direct conduit for Momiji's Stamina Drain.
The Lion gasped, a wet, ragged sound. He felt a cold, draining pull deep in his marrow. His chakra, his physical strength, his very vitality was being siphoned away at a terrifying rate, flowing down the crimson connection into Momiji. The Fire ninja's famed vitality, the fuel for his powerful techniques, was now feeding the demon.
"Release him!" Yamato shouted, his Wood Dragon root surging upward to spear Momiji from below.
Empowered by the sudden, intoxicating influx of energy, Momiji didn't dodge. He let the wooden spear take him in the thigh, using the impact to tear himself and the Lion away from the main group. He hit the ground rolling, the Lion a ragdoll in his grip, the draining connection unbroken.
The other Root ninja moved to encircle them, but hesitated. A direct attack risked the Lion.
Momiji grinned, a horrifying sight as his canines lengthened. The gash on his side was already sealing, the gray vapor solidifying into new, dark flesh. The hole in his leg began to do the same, pushing against the impaling wood. "You wanted to talk," he rasped, his voice thick with stolen energy. "Now we talk. Call off your earth-mover. Or I drain this one dry and use his husk as a shield against your fire."
The Lion, his face pale and waxy, struggled. "Don't… negotiate… Tenzō…" he choked out.
Yamato's face was a mask of conflict. The mission was capture. But a Root agent's life was also a resource to be spent wisely. Letting the Lion die here, for nothing, was a waste. Yet, yielding to a monster…
He made his decision. "Stand down," he ordered the Earth and Wind ninja. The Water ninja, Haku, looked ready to protest but held his position.
Yamato took a step forward, his hands open and empty. "Release him. We will withdraw. You have my word as a Konoha ninja."
Momiji's laugh was a dry, brittle sound. "Your word? The word of the man who digs graves to 'invite' people?" He tightened his grip, and the Lion convulsed, a fresh wave of energy flooding into Momiji. His wounds visibly knitted faster. "You withdraw first. All of you. Over that ridge. When I can no longer sense you, I'll let him go." It was a lie, and they all knew it. The moment they were gone, the Lion was a meal.
Yamato knew it too. His eyes hardened. The Wood Dragon root, still embedded in Momiji's leg, suddenly bloomed. Dozens of smaller, needle-like wooden spines erupted from it inside Momiji's flesh.
Momiji screamed, a sound of pure rage and pain. His concentration broke. The draining connection faltered.
It was the opening the Wind ninja needed. "Wind Release: Vacuum Sphere!" A compressed orb of cutting wind shot out, not at Momiji's body, but at the connecting arm holding the Lion.
Momiji had to choose: lose the arm or lose the hostage. With a snarl of fury, he released the Lion, yanking his arm back. The vacuum sphere sliced the air where it had been.
The Lion collapsed, breathing in ragged gasps, alive but severely weakened, his chakra system ravaged.
Momiji, bleeding black ichor from the wooden spines shredding his leg, ripped himself free with a sickening tear. He glared at Yamato, his crimson eyes promising murder. "This isn't over, Mu Dun user."
He dissolved into a swarm of crimson maple leaves and blood mist, scattering into the forest's deeper shadows, his retreat fueled by pain and the stolen energy he'd managed to absorb.
Yamato didn't order a pursuit. He knelt by the Lion, quickly assessing his condition. "He'll live. But his chakra reserves are critically depleted. He won't be combat-effective for weeks."
The Lion grasped Yamato's wrist, his grip weak. "Report… to Lord Danzo," he whispered, each word an effort. "Target… is not Uzumaki. It is something else. Something… that feeds."
Yamato nodded grimly. The clean capture mission was a failure. But they had new, vital intelligence. The thing in the forest wasn't a lost descendant to be recruited. It was a predator. And it was wounded, angry, and now had a taste for the power held within Konoha's shinobi.
As his team prepared to evacuate their wounded comrade, Yamato looked into the dark woods where the crimson leaves had vanished. The hunt had changed. It was no longer about invitation or containment. It was, he realized with cold certainty, now a war.
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