Kidomaru felt the death of his spider summons, inside the inn. The rabbit with them was pretty strong to break the spider's humanoid form so easily. Both of those minion had been strong enough to fight wolves with their bare hands, their deaths would be avenged. He still had a few ninja he could throw at the Inn, once it reached midnight they would find little peace in the darkness. He began the long work of summoning more spiders. While he did have a few ninja to throw away he didn't have enough to cover every exit unless he used more spider summoned creatures. They were itching for a fight after the loss of their brothers.
The moon favored him tonight, the full hunter's moon, October's moon shone down on his spider ninja, each well-hidden around the Inn. He had no more data about the interior of the place, but it was now fully surrounded, the amateurs would die in there, except for Asuma. If he could bring back nine-tails to Orochimaru then he would certainly be promoted. Maybe he could even lead the sound four, at least until they went after Sasuke, who would then be the natural leader.
The ninja that guarded the princess had picked up a few guards ever since they reached Hanabira, they weren't ninja but they could easily raise an alarm before they died, fortunately, he had a number of natural predators with him. He sent his spiderlings out spreading out around the village. The plan was simple. Kill everyone they ran into while they slept. The guards would be first, a few of them were patrolling the village, something they would do anyway but now they were alert. Kidomaru looked upward at the moon again. It's light shining down on him bathing him in its glow. He asked once more for a blessing from the hunter's moon, and then he moved.
As he lept from the tree Kidamaru spread his arms outward spider webs formed between his fingers spreading down his arm the slight glow of charka illuminating him briefly. None of the guards were looking up, that is what you can expect from the village people. Kidomaru hated them and all their backwards ways. They were fools to abandon the wild, living in a village made them all soft, weak, and easily extinguished.
The guard he had targeted never saw it coming until it was too late. He pulled in his arms the wind that had carried him aloft now worked for him as he drove his Kunai into the guard's neck driving him into the ground even as he landed on the guard. Something was wrong, however, the guard's bones did not break, and the impact felt a little off.
He looked up tuning his chakra into his eyes and releasing a jutsu the spiders taught him, he needed more Intel. He switched from spider to spider and each had the same results. Village guards were idiots but this was easy, too easy. One of his spiders rushed into a nearby house, a two-room house, the sleeping area in the back. The spider slipped into the house with a predator's grace. He slid over the ground as if he were more snake than a spider. The spider ninja stood at the door to the shared bedroom, opening it slowly to note where the sleepers were, all in the center of the room surrounding a small heater. With expert precision, he threw his Kunai at the sleeping figures to hear a satisfying clink. Wait, that wasn't right. The spiderling rushed forward throwing back the blankets to see logs of wood in the place of the villagers.
Kidomaru looked down to see a cloth dummy under him, traces of chakra leaving the dummy and he could see traces of paper burning off the guard he had killed. When had they replaced the entire village? He thought to himself as he tossed the target dummy aside. No alarm had been raised, nor had anyone moved in the Inn from what his spiderlings could tell. He knew better, they knew they were surrounded now and it would be one hell of a battle to get them out. Time to use the cannon fodder, he thought to himself.
The low-level ninja moved towards the Inn, keeping as much to cover as they could, the spiders held back and watched. If all goes well they will expose their strengths and weaknesses, Kidomaru thought to himself as one of the ninja made it to a window and then stopped. The spider controlling the ninja had lost his connection and he saw why, a fraction of a knife blade stuck out the back of the ninja and he slid off it to the ground, the knife quickly disappeared into the inn again.
Another controlling spider lost its connection as well. He turned to see a ninja slump over a wheelbarrow he had attempted to hide behind tipping it over and dumping water over him. Another controlled ninja was next to it. He was about to call the ninja back to try another route when the water around the wheelbarrow erupted into flames, not water, but fuel. Three ninja were down and they hadn't even gotten in the Inn again. The controlled ninja were simply not good enough, but they could serve as bait. He had the spiderlings force the rogue Ninja to stand up and start rushing towards the Inn, he and his spiderlings would use that as cover to slip past their defenses.
He could hear kunai sailing in the air at the rogue ninja as he and his spiderlings once more took to the air currents, their silk wings carrying them towards the roof of the Inn, his spiderlings a little ahead of him. One landed on the roof of the Inn, and then exploded, his smoke and a faint green liquid sailed from the explosion point one of which striking Kidomaru's wings sending him crashing to the ground. He looked in horror at the spider leg embedded in his shoulder, icky green spider's blood trickling down his arm. A few of the spiders had survived the mines on the roof, but he had lost half his forces. He grabbed a Rogue ninja standing next to him pushing the Ninja in front of him just in time to block several Kunai peppering the ninja. They were far better than he had expected.
Using his makeshift shield Kidomaru pushed towards the Inn, Kunai and even a smoke bomb hit the ninja as he finally made it to the door. One of his surviving Spiders joined him. They would have to do this the hard way, the very hard way. He slammed the body of the ninja into the door of the Inn, the force carrying the body through the door and into the reception area of the inn. Empty eyes looked back at him from where the night manager would have been standing, in his place a wood and straw dummy with the words "Baka" written on the face. He gave a silent order to the spider beside him to slip in and head towards the princess room, he had enough of this nonsense.
Surprisingly his men found little resistance in the Inn itself as they moved from empty room to empty room towards where the princess and her party were staying. The hairs on the back of his neck kept telling him to be careful, to watch out.
His spiderlings gathered outside the door of the bodyguards. He was about to give the order for them to move when a large hand reached through the door breaking it into twigs grabbing the nearest spiderling and crushing him, a spray of red mist mixed with green as Kidomaru grinned. The large ninja stumbled through the door looking for another opponent when a strange look crossed his face and he fell poison.
"Choji" a young voice shouted from inside the room and a younger ninja rushed in, a kunai taking him in the forehead before he even reached his friend, his body falling next to the larger ninja. Two more and that Rabbit, he thought to himself as he threw several smoke bombs into the room. Green smoke poured from the room and he ordered two more of his spiderlings into the room, his most venomous. Metal struck metal turning quickly into gasping and gasping sounds. He knew then there was no way Asuma had nine tails.
As the smoke cleared a sickly green haze still filled the room, but it was survivable for him. Inside his spiderlings held onto Asuma, faithful in death as they had been in life, each willing to die in order to take out such a heavy piece protecting the princess, a trade of a pawn for a rook, an easy choice. He noticed a small furry animal in the corner of the room, and then grinned, the rabbit died of the poisoned smoke as well, and that left the maid and the princess. The two would be completely defenseless.
As his remaining spiderlings stood by the door, Kidomaru opened the one leading into the princess' room. She hid in the corner of the room, her maid standing between her and the spider-ninja. Did she think she could defend the princess at this point? It was too late for her and her usefulness had simply run out. He walked forward, his kunai striking out at the maid he felt was beneath his notice. He was about to say something to the princess when he noticed a wig falling off the maid, long blond hair flaring out even as the maid fell to the ground. He was stunned looking down at the girl.
"Sucker." He looked up at the Princess. She was standing and grinning at him now as if she had won a major battle. That wasn't the princess. It was then he could smell something burning underneath him. He struck at the tatami mat under him ripping it away and to his horror he could see the floor was lined with exploding tags, each of them burning. This was a trap.
Then there was Oblivion.
The ground shook from the explosion as the small group watched the Hanabira Inn erupt in flame, wood sailing through the night sky. Shikamaru looked down at the sleeping Ino. The strain of making that many shadow clones was getting to her, even with Purin, the rabbit helping her both with advice and his chakra. Fortunately Purin had shown Shikamaru a way to make animated dummies, which would be good for training later according to Asuma, but for now, it was enough to fool those spiders and evacuate the small village. They had broken up into two small groups. The villagers would head to Konohagakure while they would continue on with a few of the guards.
The shocking way that the enemy had thrown away their troops had gotten to Ino, Choji too for that matter. Both of them weren't used to someone being so cold to their allies. It seemed like a lot to throw at the Princess. He was convinced more than ever that the Princess wasn't the true goal. It might have been the cover for whoever was sending those spiders after him, but not their goal. Still, someone, likely at the capital must have put this together. If they could make it there, then they might be able to unravel what was going on.
Choji was certain whoever was after them was now dead, but neither Asuma nor Shikamaru believed it for a moment. He was a little envious of Ino and Purin who Choji carried, at least they would get some sleep this night but then again after what they just pulled off, they had earned it. It kind of amazed Shikamaru at how much her chakra had grown since their time together as an official team. She did have a lot to protect. Shikamaru turned towards the road that would lead them to the capital, "Looks like we are going into the end game now."