Dried mud from the gaps between the bluestone slabs squeezed between my toes, and the tremor rising from underground felt like a rusty steel needle.
It drove straight up from my heel into my spine. I sucked in a sharp breath from the pain, my gums aching.
That beast had one hell of a bite.
Naruto paced frantically in circles, his leather shoes scuffing black streaks across the stone.
The soles were nearly worn flat, and the leather was covered in ugly creases.
He shouted into the phone, its screen smeared with greasy fingerprints, spraying spit all over it.
"Shikamaru! Sound the red alert right now! Pull back both ANBU squads in the south! Tell Sasuke..."
I slapped the back of his head.
That cut off his pig-slaughtering howl and left my palm tingling.
"What are you wailing for?"
I picked at my ringing ear, scraping off a layer of dry skin with my nail.
Then I pried that hot slab of metal he called a phone out of his hand.
"That southern stretch is where my Divine Tree's roots are thickest."
"For every root it bites through, it'll get ten poisonous barbs shoved into its mouth."
I held the phone to my ear, its plastic casing digging painfully into it.
Static crackled through the speaker, mixed with a few shrill alarms.
"Orochimaru, quit playing dead. Has that crappy Radar of yours found anything?"
"Is it a wild boar with an iron snout, or some mutated groundhog?"
Orochimaru's dry, raspy cough came through the phone.
It was accompanied by the clatter of keys and the sharp clink of a coffee cup hitting the desk.
"Sen, stop joking. That thing has no vital signs."
"Its chakra signatures are entirely synthetic, and its shell is harder than the latest Alloy Armor."
"It's