"Karin, use your senses, tell the location of other teams." Sukuna asked, while he himself used his own senses to find any negative signature around him besides Kiyomi and himself.
He didn't even need Karin's help to figure out at least where both Naruto and Gaara were; the bijuu inside them stood out like a beacon to him.
"There are 3 weaker chakra signatures to our west, north, and east. While the strongest signature I could find was further north, that should be Naruto." Karin muttered to herself. She was too used to Naruto's signature to not figure him out.
"Though there are two other strong signatures..." Karin midway paused. Her voice hitched the moment she sensed one of the two signatures she talked about.
It was dark, vile almost. Not like Sukuna's kind of dark. Sukuna's chakra wasn't exactly malicious, at least not to her. It was just dark with a very dangerous edge.
But this chakra signature she felt, it was different. One was chaotic, much like Naruto. While the other, that felt vile to her.
"What happened?" Kiyomi frowned, seeing the red head stop midway.
"...I-I sense strong chakra over there." She pointed towards the east.
"And there." She pointed later towards further west.
"Which one made you react like that." Sukuna asked, his own senses weren't as capable as Karin's so he couldn't tell exactly, but by how Karin pointed out, the former was closer to Naruto's location.
"The first one." Karin frowned.
"I see." Sukuna nodded. Externally, he didn't say a thing, but internally, he was contemplating his next move. Should he go there and check it out for himself? It wouldn't take him more than 5 minutes with Kamui. Though he would need a good excuse to go.
Or should he just wait. If something were to happen then he was certain that one of the members in Team 7 would alert him with the Hiraishin mark. He thought it through and for the time being decided to ignore that.
"Just keep an eye out for that signature, tell me if it's getting too close to Team 7's location."
Karin looked hesitant but then finally nodded.
"Do you know who that could be?" Kiyomi narrowed her eyes, she had a feeling that the boy wasn't telling them something.
"I might, I might not. Can't say for sure. For the time being, let's just focus on getting ourselves a heaven scroll, okay." He smiled, to both Karin and Kiyomi's irritation.
"And how are we gonna do it, our team leader doesn't even seem to have a plan, nor sees the necessity of having one." Kiyomi shot him a dry look.
"But of course, we do what people do when there is nothing to do. We improvise."
"Karin... which team is the closest to us." Sukuna grinned, ready to go wreak some havoc.
Turns out it was the one on the western side. So, without waiting anymore, they departed.
Quickly jumping on top of the long grown tree branches, inside the forest which looked like a place ghosts rested. They moved at an amazing feat.
"It's just me or this place is creepy as hell." Karin had shivers going down her spine the deeper they went inside. The place was eerie, more than that it looked dangerous.
10 minutes in and they had already spotted a snake big enough to gulp all three of them together and still have space for a fourth person.
Some animals were bigger than her apartment room and she swore to god every second step she was hearing creeping sounds coming from the bushes.
Once again, neither Sukuna nor Kiyomi batted an eye at the eeriness of the forest. They had faced much more in their life to be afraid of some unkept forest.
"Don't worry, there is nothing in this place which could kill you unless you're a complete idiot, letting your guard down." Sukuna waved his hand nonchalantly and ignored the jumpy girl.
"Oi, how much further." Kiyomi clicked her tongue, unsatisfied by how the girl was jumpy at every other noise coming from the surroundings. Whining constantly.
Karin's brow twitched at the tone, "We are close." She huffed.
Kiyomi ignored the girl's attitude and activated her Sharingan to check her surroundings. Under the high definition observation of the Sharingan she quickly noticed a few traces of movement left behind by the team they were heading for.
"What if it's a Konoha team." Karin asked.
"What else, we fight and take their scroll." Kiyomi shrugged.
"Can't you sense whether they are from Konoha or not." Sukuna looked behind and asked with a bit of confusion on his face. He wouldn't hold back taking a fellow Konoha nin's scroll, however, if given the option he would rather go after other villages first.
"I remember the chakra signatures of our classmates, but not everyone." Karin shrugged, she wasn't some data sheet to recall everyone's chakra signature like that.
By the time they arrived near the team Karin sensed, they found a team which made her pause.
"That's..." Karin stuttered, paused on top of the branch she was on, making both her teammates wonder what happened.
It didn't take one look for Sukuna to realise the reason. The team was from Hidden Grass.
"What's the matter four eyes, hurry up." Kiyomi scowled at the sudden pause, irritated. She wished to test out her recent training on someone and the team was the best target practice. Unknown even to her, her mindset was becoming more like her brother.
"They are from Hidden Grass." Sukuna pointed promptly, knowing that Kiyomi didn't know the history behind that village and Karin.
"So..." Kiyomi frowned, not getting what was the problem.
Sukuna just ignored the girl. He didn't have the patience nor the right to explain the history; if Karin felt like it then she could do it later on.
"Karin..."
"Huh..." Karin's steely eyes looked completely different at this moment, so much so that even Kiyomi could figure out that there was something she didn't know.
"Those are kids, not directly responsible for what happened. However, I'm the last person to advise someone to choose the greater good. Do as you wish, just make sure you won't regret it later."
Sukuna said and then took out a dango stick he promptly stole from a certain kunoichi when she wasn't looking, and sat down.
"Want one." He asked Kiyomi.
Kiyomi blinked, 'what you mean want one? why are you resting here. Don't we have to get their scroll?' Kiyomi looked baffled. Her eyes turned towards Karin whose eyes were still on the Grass team, a multitude of emotions passing through her face.
"Of course, if you wish to have nothing to do with them, then I'll take care of them." Sukuna offered.
"No!" Karin shook her head immediately.
"I'll do it." She frowned, body stiff and hands clenched, like internally conflicted on what action to take. So much so that even Kiyomi could see how tense the other, once cheery, girl was.
"Hm..." Sukuna nodded, taking a bite of the dango.
And the next second she was gone...
"Hey... don't tell me you're serious. I don't know what her history with that village is, but it's definitely nothing good by the face she was making. Are you sure we should let her go alone." Kiyomi asked with hesitation. While externally the girl was also annoying and came out as rude and rebellious, in reality she did care.
She was just wired to not show it, since if she showed it, that might become a weakness others could use against her next.
Sukuna slowly chewed his dango, not bothered to give a reply until he was done swallowing the bite. Only once he was done, utterly infuriating Kiyomi by that intentional short delay, he said.
"Would you say your life back in the Zenin Clan was good?"
"What!" Kiyomi's features contracted, she didn't even like hearing that name anymore. If not for the only man in this entire world knowing her real identity, she might have even gone to a Yamanaka one day to remove those memories from her brain.
She didn't wish to hear that name ever again; once again she was very similar to Maki in this regard.
"It's a simple question, was your life back then a good one?"
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Kiyomi didn't shout, but the intensity and firmness in her voice said it all.
"Yeah... well, considering the Grass village being something similar to Karin." Sukuna nodded.
Kiyomi furrowed her brows.
"Look, I'm not the right person to tell you this, ask her if you wish to know. But let me tell you, you're not the only one in this team with demons in their past.
In fact, the two of you are much more similar than you realise." Sukuna said and took another bite of his dango, surely a certain kunoichi was cursing him right now.
Beyond that though, he refused to say anything more.
Kiyomi's own hands clenched up recalling those memories. Then her eyes darted towards where the Grass team went.
'Perhaps, I shouldn't ignore her just cause she's annoying...' She grumbled.
xXx
A/N : I realised in this chapter that I haven't done much of a team building exercise between team 11. So perhaps during this forest of death test, I can fix that. Lets see.
And too see, it need stones. Or patience since you'll get a chapter the next day anyways.
But still, please stones...!
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