Kaen's POV
I took deep breaths, forcing myself to calm down. After a few moments, I noticed my hands were trembling. Maybe it was the battle rush or something else. I tried to move, but my body felt heavy. I knew I had burned through a lot of chakra in that last dash, but I still had some left.
I forced myself upright, my limbs sluggish, and looked toward Sena. She was on the ground, gasping for air, her hands shaking slightly. My eyes widened. I had never seen her like that before. She was always composed and steady. What truly froze me was the wound on her face. It ran from just above her hairline, down past her left eye, thankfully the eye itself looked intact, across her cheek, and cut slightly into her upper lip.
Anger surged. I turned and kicked Owl's motionless body, my voice rising before I could stop it. "Take that, you piece of trash. That's for hurting my teammate."
"Kaen, stop," Sena said weakly, her voice trembling.
I exhaled, trying to steady myself. "Sena, what happened? Are you okay?"
She shook her head. "Looks like they took a page out of my book and coated their weapons with a slow acting poison."
I froze. The heaviness, the weakness, it all made sense. "Are we going to die?" I asked quietly.
She sighed. "It's meant to paralyze its victims first. Then they can take us as hostages to use against Sensei. At least that's what I think their plan was."
I clenched my fists. "If it only paralyzes us, that's not too bad, right?"
Sena's eyes softened with a tired smile as she shook her head. "No. Once the paralysis sets in, it kills slowly. It's perfect for interrogation. They capture you, drag you to their base, and keep you alive just long enough to use the antidote as leverage."
My stomach turned as the weight of her words sank in. "You're sure about that?"
"I am," she said, pushing herself up with visible effort. "I've been building poison resistance since I was a kid. I can tell by how it feels. We still have a little time before we freeze completely. Once that happens, we won't be able to move or help ourselves, Sensei, or Noa."
I wanted to ignore her as I started moving. "Sena, go outside the chakra distortion field and call for help. I will go alone to help Sensei. I would rather die than let him down."
Sena reached out and grabbed my arm before I could move. "Kaen, please," she said, her voice calm but strained. "Come with me. We will call for help together. I also want to try chakra-based antidotes, but I cannot do that here. Once I send for aid and figure out the antidote, we will go back to help Sensei."
I looked at her hand gripping my arm, then turned away to search Owl's body. "Maybe they have an antidote on them," I muttered.
Sena shook her head as she walked closer. "Unlikely. It is probably sealed to his chakra signature, or they did not carry one at all. They would not risk their mission security by letting enemies find their counteragents."
My hand trembled harder. I bit my lip until I tasted blood.
Sena noticed and dropped a scroll to the ground. "Come with me. I will find a way to save Sensei."
"What is in that scroll?" I asked, frowning.
"A message," she said simply. "For Sensei and Noa, in case they arrive before we return. I want them to know what happened here."
I did not fully understand why she was leaving it behind. We would be back before long, would we not? But I sighed. She was always the cautious one. And with the poison crawling through my veins, slowing me down more each second, I could not argue.
"What do we need to do?" I asked quietly.
"Follow me," she said, already moving.
I forced myself to keep pace with her as we ran. The farther we went, the heavier my limbs became. My muscles locked up one by one, my body turning sluggish and unsteady. Sena was slowing down too, though not as fast as me.
Then I felt it, a shift in the air. The chakra around us stopped twisting and began to flow naturally again. The oppressive weight started to lift. We had crossed the boundary.
The moment relief hit, my legs froze completely. I collapsed forward, hitting the ground hard. Pain exploded behind my eyes. "Sena," I rasped, "whatever you are going to do, do it now."
I raised my head and saw her kneeling in front of me, already pulling a scroll from her pouch. She unrolled it and pressed it flat on the dirt. Her expression softened for a moment. "Forgive me, Kaen," she whispered. "This is for your own good."
She bit her thumb, letting blood drip onto the inked seal. Then she slammed her palm against the scroll.
"Summoning Technique: Phantom Butterfly."
A surge of chakra burst outward, stirring the dirt and leaves around us.
The air rippled softly, and the chakra pulse spread through the clearing like a heartbeat. Instead of smoke, faint threads of pale light rose from the scroll, drifting upward and twisting together into a fragile shape.
Wings unfolded, translucent and shimmering, scattering small motes of blue and silver. The creature hovered above the ground, no larger than Sena's hand. Its form pulsed gently, each beat of its wings leaving ripples in the air as if it were moving through water instead of air.
The butterfly glowed with quiet life. Its body was nearly transparent, and its veins shimmered with flowing chakra. When it moved, the light changed color from white to faint violet and then to soft blue, like moonlight shifting across a lake.
I stared in disbelief, unable to take my eyes off the glowing creature. "What is that?" I asked weakly.
Sena smiled faintly, her breathing uneven but controlled. "It may be small, but it carries enough chakra to send a message."
She stepped closer to the butterfly, her voice soft but commanding. "Alright, return and inform the honored Spirit Sage Butterfly that this is an emergency. Request a reverse summoning according to the protocol."
The butterfly tilted its head as if acknowledging her words. It fluttered closer and brushed its wings against Sena's cheek, leaving behind a faint trail of light that sank into her skin before fading completely.
Her eyes closed briefly, and she whispered, "Go."
The butterfly rose silently into the air. Its wings beat once and again, and on the third motion, its body began to dissolve into light. The glow spread from the tips of its wings inward, scattering into hundreds of tiny sparks that drifted upward before fading completely. For a brief moment, the clearing shimmered with a soft silver hue, and then the butterfly was gone, returning to its realm as quietly as it had arrived.
My eyes widened as confusion and anger mixed inside me. "Sena, what do you mean by reverse summon? I thought you were going to find an antidote, heal us, and then we would go back."
Sena shook her head, her expression steady but regretful. "I am sorry, Kaen, but you would not have listened if I told you the truth."
I opened my mouth to argue, but she suddenly stepped forward and pulled me close. My breath caught, my thoughts scattered, and my face burned with embarrassment. I was too stunned to speak. Her hands pressed firmly against my back, and I felt her chakra flow around us, wrapping both our bodies within a single field, its movement precise and steady under her incredible control.
Sena's voice was low, almost a whisper against my ear. "This is for everyone's benefit. Believe me."
The ground beneath us rippled like the surface of a pond. Light flared from the summoning scroll, forming a glowing ring that pulsed in sync with our shared chakra. My body began to feel weightless. For a second, I thought I was falling upward instead of down.
Everything around us blurred. The forest, the cold air, the pain in my limbs, all of it vanished into a rushing silence. It felt like being pulled through water and lightning at the same time, as if the world itself had inhaled and drawn us with it.
Then it stopped.
We landed hard on solid wood. My knees hit the floor first, and I gasped. The dim, golden light of hanging lanterns filled my vision.
I blinked several times before I realized where we were. The walls were covered in seals, each faintly glowing with residual chakra. The air was still, heavy with the faint hum of power.
Sena released me and steadied herself on one knee. "We are back. We are safe," she said softly, her tone calm yet certain.