Naruto: The New Sealmaster

Slowly Aoshi began waking up. He quickly noticed that he was tied up. Both his arms and legs were tied in ropes. He was spread out like an x. His stomach was tied to a wooden pole and there was a cloth tied around his face and over his mouth to prevent him from talking and yelling. He tried looking around but it was difficult to move at all. What he did see was the cave he was in. It was a rather dark and dank cave with very rough walls. There were iron rings placed on the ceiling and the floor to allow for captives. He must be in the bandits' hideout.

Looking around he also saw a couple of those he went in with. The leader was missing but two of the genin were there, one looked like he had been beaten half to death. One of the places to tie up a captive was empty so he could only hope that the leader was alive as well, but being interrogated. Seems like two were lost in the battle, he didn't see the two who ran away for help either but hopefully they got away.

Aoshi locked eyes with the smallest of the genin who came along. He who had never taken anything seriously before now looked like he had witnessed his absolute worst nightmare. The eyes which were always so full of energy back at the academy were now dull, Aoshi imagined he could only feel the pain right now. He's the one who looked tortured. Aoshi tried gritting his teeth but failed, that's when he realised that he had come fully prepared. One of his teeth was a fake one and a single senbon was sealed inside it. On his right hand was one of his rings with a kunai sealed inside it. On his stomach, if the seal worked, was the rest of his gear.

A gruff laugh could be heard outside the door and all eyes were turned towards it. The door opened to reveal a large fat man dragging their leader Hachiro inside the cave. He was beaten, bloodied and gone. He looked like every ounce of his being had been spent but before they could tie his mouth up he told the genin in the room. "Help will come, don't give in."

The fat man didn't take well to that and punched him once more in the stomach and went on to kick him in the face. "You ninjas think you're all so great! But look at you now? Just filth beneath my feet." and then he let out a boisterous laugh that echoed around the cave.

Aoshi tried to sense his chakra and almost grinned when he noticed that this man was just a simple bandit. No developed chakra network at all. So he prepared the next steps. He unsealed the senbon in his mouth, made a small hole with it through the cloth covering his mouth in preparation and then he acted defiant.

Aoshi pulled on all of his ropes and gave the man the fiercest glare he could possibly muster. The fat man almost looked aroused at the display. He let go of Hachiro and slowly made his way over to Aoshi. He placed a few fingers under his cheek and lifted Aoshi's face up to meet his. Aoshi now noticed that the fat man was almost half a metre taller than him, but that didn't matter. He got him up close, it was time to strike.

"You're a pretty little thing aren't you? And feisty too. If we let that hair grow out we might be able to sell you off for a decent price, tell you wha-" but that's as far as he got. Aoshi poured chakra into his tongue and flung the senbon out through the cloth. It flew right into the man's eye but didn't stop there, it penetrated his skull and flew out on the other side of his head, only to end up impacting the rock wall by the door.

The man stared at him wide-eyes for two full seconds before his eyes dulled and he fell to the ground. Aoshi had killed again. He actually saw the man's life end right in front of him, but his body went on autopilot. While his head was filled with varying thoughts, his hand unsealed the kunai from his ring and cut the ropes. He got the cloth off and then went to the others to do the same.

First rather literally sucking the life out of someone, and then murdering in cold blood face to face. Aoshi's mind kept replaying the moments when their souls seem to have left their bodies over and over but he regretted nothing. He felt terrible, like an awful person for doing it but he didn't regret it. He's alive because of it and would do it again if he had to.

While he was gathering his thoughts, everyone had been freed. A plan had to be thought of so Aoshi pushed his problems away temporarily. "Did any of you see a way out?" he asked them all. The three, both of the genin who were here with him and Hachiro the chunin, were all in contemplation. Suddenly the small genin exclaimed. "To the south! I swear I could taste the fresh air in that direction. Don't know exactly where though."

Everyone nodded at that piece of information. Hachiro stood up, coughed up some blood onto his hand and gathered himself. "I'm not really up to shape right now. I'm afraid we'll have to leave the fighting to a minimum." Suddenly a pill each was thrown into the hands of Aoshi's squadmates.

"Take a soldier pill. It should get you all through until we leave this place. We can't be that far away, right?" They all looked baffled at him, questioning where he got the pill but then they saw him hold up his pack. "I somehow managed to use a scuffed seal on my skin to seal it away, we're lucky nothing touched that part of my stomach at all. Slightest smudge and we'd be out of supplies.."

Then he unsealed some kunai and handed them each one for protection. "I'll be the one fighting if we have to, the rest of you got interrogated after all." He looked at Hachiro for approval. After a few seconds of hesitation, he agreed and they all got ready to start running after the little guy who could smell the direction of freedom.

Just before they were going to open the door, the small guy extended his hand towards Aoshi. "I'm Kazuto, in case we don't make it out. Tell Dai I did my best, will you?" Aoshi remembered that one of the members who ran to alert the others was named Dai and took Kazuto's hand. "I'm Rokushō Aoshi, and we'll all be getting out of here alive. Let's get on with it!"

They shared a smile for a split second before they opened the door and looked around. The corridor was rather empty. It looked a little like a proper underground facility when you stepped out of the cave. He didn't have much time to consider that as Kazuto started running in the direction he could smell the fresh air from.

The corridors were dark and seemingly went on forever in a straight line. They ran past countless doors and their only hope was that none of them would pop open. Finally they came to a large room so they stopped before they actually entered. The room was not really just a room by itself, it was an outlook over a fighting arena. There sat the powerful bandit on a table next to two unknown men Aoshi hadn't seen before. It seemed the others hadn't seen them either, since they looked with a tense glare at the powerful bandit instead.

The two men wore masks to cover who they were. The leader had a black robe with purple details. His mask was very peculiar, since it covered the top of his face with circular glass holes where his eyes were. His hair was short and dark. The other man had very orange long hair in a ponytail. He wore a brown short kimono with a black sash. The two were rather tall and lean, perfectly formed shinobi. Aoshi had no doubt in his mind that these two were shinobi, when he sensed their chakra that was confirmed as well. They were probably around jounin level shinobi which Aoshi had no way at all to counter.

They could not get in the way of those two, or it would all be over. So they waited. Below them, Aoshi could feel countless children fighting each other. This place was not somewhere they should remain for long, but the best play would be to stay put until the two shinobi were at the very least distracted. So they waited. After a while Aoshi felt some creepy bug crawling on his leg and crushed it. When he looked back towards the men, the leader of the shinobi was glaring right at him.

He leaned in and told the others around the table and Aoshi knew their cover was up. They had to make a run for it. So they ran. Kazuto led the way. To the right and up some stairs then suddenly they were out. They didn't know where they were but they looked around and figured out which direction was south. That would be their best bet, and so they ran. Looking back, Aoshi saw that there were three men following them. None of the dangerous ninjas were chasing them, and hopefully they didn't care. The ones chasing them were bandits, but considering the leader managed to defeat Hachiro they had to do something.

"Keep running, I'll distract them as well as I can. We'll meet again soon." Then Aoshi started performing his techniques. He ingested a soldier pill and spent a lot of his energy layering genjutsu. Three of them were placed on the area around him, all of them visual, only one of them major. The first one would make it seem like the forest was burning. The second one would cause anyone chasing to run a little bit further right than they intend to, eventually causing you to run in a large circle. The final genjutsu would make it seem like the entire group ran a different path when in reality it was just Aoshi left.

Since one of the chasing men had fallen for Aoshi's genjutsu before, he refused to do it again. Instantly, the first layer was released. Luckily for Aoshi, they assumed that was it. Aoshi was young, small and seemed to not be very powerful so they had no thought of him layering his techniques. Slowly but surely Aoshi lured them further and further away from the rest of the group. Every now and then he fired back some shuriken and senbon from different positions to make it seem like all members were still there. When he finally thought they were far enough away, he made sure to disappear from view. Then he altered the genjutsu to make his group a lot faster and strengthened the Sly Mind Affect Technique to make them walk in circles chasing where they assumed their group went.

With everything set, Aoshi ran. He had burned through most of his chakra to do this and didn't have any to use on his running. He could only use his muscles to run and they were rather tired as well by now. He could only hope that it took a while before the chasers noticed that they were running in circles.

Aoshi ran, and ran, and ran. His body ached, his spirit was gone, and his mind was dropping. He reached out with his sensing. His last bit of chakra was sent out to find help in any way or form. He reached out further and further, the precision became less and less but then finally he found what seemed like a village.

His pace dropped slower and slower. When he finally saw the entrance to the village, he face-planted the ground.