8 Five Thousand Meters until the Edge of Death

Tossed out into the sky, Kakashi found the ship’s passengers scattered around him, all similarly helpless as they fell toward the ground.

He locked eyes with Guy. Seeing the sharp nod he got in return, Kakashi suddenly understood that Guy too was braced for death again. They could have been the greatest ninja in the world, but there was still only one way things could end if they hit the ground from a height of five thousand meters.

Dammit… Closing his eyes, he saw Kahyo in that blue dress.

“The longer you all hesitate, the more victims there will be.” She had said this with pleading eyes when they were hiding in the kitchen.

“How could someone like you understand the feelings of a parent whose child has been killed!” she had shouted with her whole body from beneath her mask.

What could I have done? Could I have done something to her? The ridiculousness of it suddenly hit him. Let it go. It’s over already. Death will finally come. It’s my turn to go there now, to that place where Obito and my father and all my comrades lost in battle have gone.

Which is why when his body rebelled against gravity and floated upward gently, Kakashi couldn’t understand what was happening.

“Good thing I made it in time.” He opened his eyes to find Sai looking down at him, grinning. “Did you forget? You called me, didn’t you, Master Kakashi?”

Kakashi sat up abruptly. He was on the back of a Chinese phoenix Sai had drawn. He looked around to both sides, and then up and down.

With the Tobishachimaru far above them in the sky, the Cartoon Beast Mimicry bird circled like a dark cloud. Guy, hanging from the bird’s feet, grinned and popped his thumb up. He then lifted up his bad leg. On the back of his cast, the lone word “youth” was scrawled. The passengers who had been thrown out of the ship were clinging to the back of the bird or had been clasped in its beak, or even found themselves clutching its taloned feet for dear life.

“It’s okay,” Sai said. “I got all of them.”

“Do you know the altitude right now?”

“Good question.” Sai followed Kakashi’s eyes up to the Tobishachimaru. “Roughly fifty-five hundred meters, six thousand meters maybe?”

Tobishachimaru’s probably lighter now after losing all the furnishings from the dining lounge and these people, Kakashi thought. No doubt it’s drifted higher because of that.

There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky in the morning, but now, countless dark clouds were rolling in from the west. The air began to swell with the faint scent of water.

“Do you know who the attackers are?”

“No, although Lady Tsunade has a fairly good idea.”

“The ringleader’s a man named Rahyo.” After hesitating a moment, he added, “And his younger sister, Kahyo.”

Sai nodded.

Kakashi looked up at the ship drifting in the sky above. Its route was west by northwest. Was there something important in that direction? Kakashi put the gears of his brain into action.

The Ryuha Armed Alliance were demanding Garyo’s release. They were using the hostages to try to fulfill that objective. However, they couldn’t have thought that Konoha would simply hand over their leader. In which case, perhaps they had a Plan B in case negotiations broke down. And their trump card was Kahyo. There was no doubt about that.

He quickly reached the answer to his own questions. “They’re heading toward Hozuki Castle. They had another strategy in the event Konoha wouldn’t deal. They’re going to rescue Garyo from above using the ship itself. We need to tighten security at the castle.”

“What!”

They were going to pull Garyo up into the sky with Kahyo’s jutsu. If she used the icicles of Earth Chain Ice, it was more than possible. Then all they would have to do was commandeer the Tobishachimaru and fly Garyo to any place he wanted.

“Ino,” Kakashi called in his mind. “Can you hear me, Ino?”

“I can hear you.” Her reply came right away. “I’m so glad you’re all right, Master Kakashi.”

“Tobishachimaru is heading toward Hozuki Castle.”

“What?”

“They’re probably planning an aerial assault—to rescue Garyo from the sky.”

“Understood. I’ll inform Lady Tsunade immediately.”

“Sai?”

“Yes?”

“Take me back to the Tobishachimaru.”

Sai didn’t respond.

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” Kakashi said. “And I can’t leave the rest of the hostages to fend for themselves.”

Riding upward air currents, Sai’s bird broke through the rain clouds and, in the blink of an eye, came out the other side next to the Tobishachimaru. The hole in the ship’s body was already closed over. The ice created with Kahyo’s Earth Chain Ice bulged out from the sealed gap, threatening to overflow.

She was safe.

As he breathed a sigh of relief, Kakashi focused his mind.

The air was thin. Sai’s estimate of around six thousand meters was probably on the nose. Kakashi did the calculations as he searched for a way into the ship. They could go up to around seven thousand meters and the passengers wouldn’t pass out right away, even if the air inside the cabin wasn’t pressurized to mimic a sea-level environment. But it was only a matter of time before they ran out of oxygen. And from what Kakashi could see, the Tobishachimaru was gradually ascending. Maybe the gauges in the pilothouse were broken. So the pilot wouldn’t notice the ship’s ascent—

“There.” Sai pointed. “There’s a hole in the gondola of the passenger cabin.”

Kakashi turned his body in the direction Sai indicated. Through a break in the clouds rolling by, he scrutinized the entry point. On the lower part of the air bladder, at the base of the carp’s pectoral fin, was a hole big enough for a single person to slip through.

“Good. I’ll go in through that.”

Sai nodded, and the bird tilted its wings to slide through the sky at an angle before stopping precisely beside the hole.