Tsume was gone.

And he hadn't remembered to tell her that he didn't know half her damn codes. All he'd gotten from that rattle of fingers against skin was fight--up--outdistance, and she was gone.

If she'd done that deliberately, he was going to strangle her.

Darkness pressed in. He was naked and sightless on an open deck, deaf to everything but the vibration of heavy footprints through wooden planks. The sting of cold air and sea spray over flayed skin. Weaponless and alone.

If there was ever a time to panic--

--this was not it.

Chakra came when he called it, weak and blistered, searing along scorched pathways; he snapped it into half a dozen clones. Five spun away instantly, disappearing into chaos he couldn't see. The sixth dropped a hand on his unwounded shoulder and wrenched him around, away from the railing. He stumbled, righted himself, and ran, trusting it to lead him.

One died. He got a dizzy, disorganized snapshot of a ship in turmoil. Running men, bellowing ninja--

A second. This time all he saw was an incoming blade--

A third. He felt the sailor's neck break in its hands. Then it looked up, staring at a gleam of moonlit flesh as Tsume--

Leapt off the damn ship.

The hand on his shoulder tightened and yanked, ripping him to the right, almost pitching him off his feet. Outflung hands slammed against wood--a wall?--and scraped down in a rash of splinters. Cut my hands, he remembered abruptly, as pain seared. Fucking kunoichi with her katana.

A heavy vibration slammed down just behind his legs. Then a second, much closer as the clone shoved him aside. He felt a slash of wind twist over naked skin--the breeze from a weapon.

Fourth clone. The bandaged ninja was balanced on the rail, hands dancing through seals, blood shining on the new bandage wrapped around his foot. A giant wave arching up--

Tsume.

Chakra flickered behind Asuma, ordered and lethal. He grabbed for the dregs of his own, slamming it through the first seals he could think of. Tsume wasn't on the ship. If he destroyed the ship--

The lash--the damn lash--snapped around his wrist, wrapping all the way up his forearm, tightening like a leather snake. The tip laid open a red line of flesh, but his hands were already together, chakra releasing, and he felt the wind slam up and tear away, flinging itself out.

Civillian chakra patterns vanished--thrown overboard--the lash yanked him off his feet--caught the bastard--and, distantly, the organized pattern braced over the railing flared and twisted, falling--knocked him off the rail.

The ship lurched, keeling sideways. Asuma felt his clone grab him, felt the fifth one die--saw the bandaged ninja's wave slamming into the ship--but there were other hands, too. Bigger, heavier hands, swiping his clone away and grabbing him by the throat. He bucked and grabbed back, but the bullwhip tore his arm down, and something that felt a lot like a forehead slammed into his face--

White lights shattered through the black.

Sixth clone. Asuma saw himself, pinned and dazed and bleeding in the whip-weilding ninja's hold, knees buckling towards the heaving, shattered deck. Then there was only darkness.

And pain.