Butterflies and Puppets

Chapter 56

"Well." Sota starts off. "Temari and Kankuro need help with some missions currently. You two will be helping them, Kiba, you are the best at tracking which they need to track their target and Mayumi." He lets out a sigh and hands me a scroll and I take it an unravel it and skim it.

"Really?" I look up at the Sand ninjas. "Do you guys not have a Interrogation Officer?" They shake their head No and I close the scroll and let out a sigh. "I guess let's get going." I grumble putting on my sandals and my sword and head towards the door.

I stop by a couple of stands getting a few kunais and fruit before we leave with Kiba and Sota following me while the other two head towards the gate.

"So what happened?" Kiba asks.

"What do you mean?" I question him, I really don't want to talk about this.

"Between you and Kankuro. You were so happy when you two were together, you could literally feel the happiness coming off of you. Now, you feel like a dead flower waiting to have its leaves plucked to end your suffering."

I chuckle at his comment. "You know me Kiba, I have never been one to think about relationships. It's.. it's better off like this.."

"I highly doubt it." He replies.

"There is definitely a difference in you Mayumi." Sota speaks up causing me to pause, he's never commented about my relationship with Kankuro.

"Well, we're done. Now let's get this mission going." I state as I start walking again and head to the gates.

"Are we already?" Temari asks, I nod my head yes and we head out.

We walk for a few hours me beside Kiba upfront Temari and Kankuro behind us and Sota-Sensei in the back. I feel something under my foot and I lift my shoe up and see I stepped onto a trap.

"It's a trap!" I shout as I see a bunch of kunai coming at us fast. Everyone ducks down and I swing my sword around trying to deflect the weapons away from everyone. When I feel pain hitting my back. Shit, they came from both sides.

I gasp and fall to my knees holding onto my sword for support. "Mayumi!" I hear Kiba shout, I hear people fighting and yelling.

"K-Kiba!" I shout standing up.

"Mayumi!" He grabs me and helps me up. "We gotta find Sota-Sensei!"

"What do you mean find him?!" I yell.

"Kankuro and Temari fought a few rogue ninjas but Sota disappeared and we can't find him anywhere." He explains as we walk up to the Sand Siblings.

I look at Kiba and push him. "Then track him! You can sniff him out!"

"Mayumi, it's not that easy! Sota sensei doesn't have a smell!"  He says pushing me back.

"Find. Him. Kiba." I seethe, I would never say anything but Sota-Sensei means a lot to me. It would truly crush me if something were to ever happen to him. I grab Kiba's parka by the collar and stare at him. "Find him."

"Mayumi..." Temari says softly I look at her and back at Kiba I let him go and roughly shove him away and start walking looking at the ground to find any signs of a struggle.

"You're not going to find him like that!" Kiba shouts I whip around our noses touching, my eyes red, my breathing hard.

"Sota-Sensei is not here right now Inuzuka, so I am next in command, you can listen to me or you can leave. If you keep up like this, not listening to your platoon leader, I will and you know I will dismiss you off of this mission." Which is true, I have kicked Ryota and Buyuu off of a mission, shoot, I've even kicked Shino off of missions.

I turn back around and start walking watching the ground. I see foot prints, they are not Sota's, but I have a feeling there was a struggle by looking at these bushes and I can feel their ruffed up a bit. I whistle to the others to follow me, and pull out my sword trying to be as quiet as possible.

We find a branch to hide on as we watch Sota trapped in some ropes. He has been caught, and I know for a fact that he's being used as bait.

"There he is!" Kiba exclaims. I look over to Kankuro and Temari jumping out of the tree with Kiba and I scream.

"No! It's a trap!" I shout as they land and a giant net captures them. Ugh, and people complain about me jumping into something without thinking.

I watch as they struggle in the nets, I'm thinking those are chakra draining nets and I'm sure there is more traps and possibly a few lines around them too. I look over to Sota just sitting there trapped. I can't see his face, and that is what really scares me.

I look over to see the three idiots trying to cut through the ropes. This is fucking useless. I get Arul to flutter around making what I call his fancy fairy dust everywhere.

I see that there are several lines reflect off the sun connected to the nets and I look between them and realize there is a lot more lines connecting them, someone really took their time to make this. As Buyuu told me once, no one is ever going to use multiple lines like that. Only 1, except him of course. But always treat it as there it more than one and find the weak point and cut it.

Arul flutters back to me and I can tell he his stressed out as much as I am. I quickly make a clone of myself and Arul and I jump down some to get a better look.

"Shit." I says to myself. I can't see them well. "Arul?" I say, he doesn't even need instructions, he already knows to get close to try and find the right wire.

Lucikly with Arul, I can see whatever he is seeing. But I'm so worried he may get too close and set one of them off. He flutters back to me and I pull out a kunai. I know exactly which two to cut. This can go two ways, I don't fuck this up and we leave, or I fuck it up and we all die.

I think we all know which I'm going to choose.

I sneak as close as I can to the nets without any notice. Then it hit me, why the hell is no one around?! Surely someone would have come by now to see what going on, unless they are waiting for me to make a move. Let's just hope no one comes.

I pull my kunai and every carefully channel my chakra through it and use the air to throw it exactly where I want it, my teammates fall and I quickly send another to get Sota down.

They all rush over to me, but I push them away and run over to Sota-Sensei.

"S-Sota-Sensei?!" I shout and I roll him over and see he has multiple stab wounds, and barely breathing. "Shit." I mutter trying to stop the bleeding.

"Mayumi!" Kiba says running up to me.

"He's-hes hurt Kiba! I need you and Kankuro to take him back-" I start to cry, I've never had Sota hurt before, this is a first, and I'm not handling it very well.

"No-"

"You listen to me." I say very stern and slowly. "You two are taking him back. Temari and I will take care of the mission."

"We'll take him back." Kankuro agrees walking up to me and wipes my tears away and then gets on one side of Sota while Kiba gets on the other side and they leave with Sota's limp body.

"Mayumi?" Temari questions. I sniff and look at her waiting for her to say something. "You did the right thing, let's finish this mission."

I nod at her and we take off trying to find our target.

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I've never asked this before, but what are your thoughts on Sota? He holds a special place in my heart 💙