Raiju extended his paws forward onto either side of us and brought his tail up above his head, stretching as much as he could in the tight space. His yellow eyes blinked open several times until they focused on the three of us. He just looked really tired, like he needed a really strong cup of black tea or coffee, and after being asleep for almost four hundred years, that didn't come as too much of a surprise.
My breath was caught in my chest; this was it. Apparently, Nori had been able to get enough chakra before I was able to stop the extraction. If she sealed that thing inside her, passed out Kakashi and broken handed me would not be able to fight back. I couldn't make two-handed seals.
My palms were getting clammy from fear with just the thought of having to fight a jinchuriki in my state. Wait, that wasn't sweat, that was Kakashi's blood on my hands. The kunai wound on his back was bleeding profusely.
Tearing my eyes away from the stirring monster, I grabbed Kakashi's shirt from the ground near us, rolled it up into a ball, and pressed it to the wound after removing the kunai. I then tied the sleeves tightly around his chest to hold the shirt in place. Not exactly a great field dressing, but it was the best that I could do at the moment.
I looked back at Raiju to see him smacking his lips together tiredly before bringing a paw up to scratch his ear. He didn't seem to care about us at all, but when Nori began making hand signs, he focused those lantern-like eyes right on her.
"That is not a good idea."
It could talk. Holy shit, it could talk. Not that it should come as too big of a surprise since the Tailed Beasts could talk, but I was still really not expecting that.
Nori paused on the last seal and looked up at it rudely, "And why is that?"
"I heard everything that you said before, and it's not going to work." I was shocked by how smooth its voice was, very well educated sounding. An erudite, transparent, talking, mythical wolf... I swear that it wasn't a drug trip.
Nori did not look amused. "And tell me, why is it that my plan won't work? If you heard what I said earlier, then it's entirely possible that you're just saying that to try to keep me from sealing you."
He just settled his face on his paws as I turned my head between the yokai and the angry kunoichi like I was watching a tennis match. "You remind me of her a lot; however, you lack her strength."
My mother looked like she was about ready to start screaming at him in frustration. This might sound strange, but I was really liking Raiju so far. Anyone who can piss off Nori is a friend of mine.
"Who do I remind you of?" You could practically see the contempt dripping off her tone.
"Kaguya Otsutsuki. You're both power crazed with plans of world domination."
A cold grin stretched across Nori's features, "Why thank you. She has always been an idol of mine."
Raiju let a puff of air out of his snout that sounded a lot like a sarcastic snort. "Figures. However, she got here first so you're out of luck." He nudged his nose towards Kakashi and I, "You almost killed them for nothing."
"Enough dancing in circles and tell me what you mean."
Raiju fixed her with a half-lidded, lazy stare. "Put yourself in Kaguya's shoes for a moment. The two of us fought. I didn't really like her; she didn't really like me. You know, wolf and rabbit, not exactly what I'd call a companionable combination. Now, if you were her, would you leave an enemy of yours in a state where they could potentially be revived later?" When Nori gave him only a flat stare as an answer, he continued. "No, you wouldn't. I've been stuck here in limbo for the last four hundred years. Unable to wake up fully, yet unable to truly fall asleep. Thanks to the chakra that you gave me, I can have this small period of semi-wakefulness. If you seal me within you, you will become like me. Not that I'd really mind one way or another; I just thought that you'd like to know what you were getting into. So what will it be?" He yawned.
"You're lying."
"Think whatever you want to think."
"You must be lying."
Raiju's eyes slid three quarters closed, "You're starting to sound a little desperate."
"So this was all for nothing. You can never be revived?"
"Let me think about that for a moment. Yep, never." He paused for a moment, "Well, you could potentially release me from the jutsu that Kaguya placed on me, but that would just allow me to pass on. Which I'm pretty sure isn't what you want."
That made me curious. Curious enough to enter the conversation. "So, uh, then how do you release the jutsu?"
"Simple. Destroy the cave."
I was expecting a list of hand signs or something.
"Huh?"
"As long as I'm stuck in this cave, I'm in limbo. And as long as I'm in limbo, I can't do anything about being stuck in this cave. So if you destroy the cave, poof, I'm free to pass on."
That was actually a pretty ingenious jutsu.
I don't know what compelled me to ask my next question. "Do you want to be freed from the jutsu?"
When he fixed one eye on me, I could see a longing in it that I hadn't really expected. "What do you think?"
I gave him a half smile, "That I should destroy this cave the first chance that I get."
He looked shocked for a moment. "It's Kaiyo, right? Well, in that case, Kaiyo, you'll have my thanks." He started to curl back up into a ball, "I don't like her, reminds me too much of Kaguya for comfort. Kick her ass for me, will ya?"
I grabbed the kunai that I had pulled from Kakashi's back, "I was already planning on that."
A/N: I sat down with my Lord of the Rings music and a day of nothing planned and wrote almost the entire rest of the book. Phew... I might have carpal tunnel right now, but it was totally worth it. This is probably the greatest number of chapters that I have ever published at once.