The friends left the town soon enough after Lao recovered, and camped in the forest again.

They gathered in the Lin boys' tent, and started questioning Yowai, whom Tao had tied with her wood style ropes.

Yowai watched his captors in fear. He was especially afraid of Gaara, whom he remembered as a wrathful opponent. After all, he had taken out two of his close friends.

Lao was there too, sitting on the ground with the others. Her sisters, Tao and Gao, were holding her, because she still felt a little tired and weak. She carefully watched Yowai, and could easily notice his fear.

"Now then, who is your boss you bragged about?" Shao asked with a smirk.

"I will not tell you anything!" Yowai exclaimed, but trembled at the same time. "You can do whatever you want! You're getting no information from me!"

"Ugh, you're so annoying!" Tao cried, "Tell us who your boss is or I'm going to finish you off!"

"Um, weren't you the one who suggested to question her, sis?" Shao chuckled.

"I didn't think he would be so unbearable!" Tao grunted.

Shao laughed.

"He will sing like a bird when I finish with him." He made his hand signs and focused his gaze on Yowai: "Black Spirit Style: Dark Illusions!"

Naruto widened his eyes:

"That's the same horrible jutsu you used on me!"

After some minutes, Yowai, with his eyes staring into oblivion, screamed in horror and dread, and began to cramp and struggle:

"No! Leave me! No!"

Shao's eyes sparkled. He now resembled no less of a monster than his elder sister. Lao could bear it no more:

"Shao, stop!"

Shao raised an eyebrow, and stopped his jutsu. Yowai snapped out of the illusions, heavily breathing. Sweat poured off his forehead. He trembled in horror.

"What's wrong, sis, you've become softie in all of a sudden?" Shao chuckled.

"What you're doing is horrifying!" Lao frowned, "That's just too much! Just hold your Black Spirit tighter! What the heck is wrong with you?!"

"Hmph, says who..." Shao rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

Yowai quivered and whimpered. Now he seemed not so tough as in the tavern anymore but a total weakling. Lao's eye filled with pity.

"Listen, you won't have to suffer so much if you tell us about Akuno... I'm sure he's your boss, isn't he?" she asked in a soft voice.

Yowai looked up at her in fear. He felt a warm palm on his shoulder - Lao had touched him, with a warm smile on her face.

"Just tell us the truth, that's all. We won't hurt you, I promise."

Yowai widened his eyes. He grimaced, feeling a strike of dark chakra in his forehead from the inside. He puckered and looked down.

"You don't understand... Yes, it's Akuno who I'm working for. But if I tell you anything about his plans, he will kill me right away. He is using rogue ninjas like me and those two, Bosu and Oroka, whom you've already killed. He is really brutal towards us."

"Hey, there's no need to worry," Mao cut in with a kind smile, "We need to know about him so we could defeat him. Then, you and all of the other ninjas would be free, right? You must help us!"

Lao smiled too:

"Mao's right. We will help, but you must let us."

Yowai fell into his thoughts. He felt the dark chakra inside of him grow stronger.

"I guess I'll be killed either way, so I'll just do what's better to get rid of Akuno..." he shrugged, "Anyway, that guy catches rogue ninjas like me, as I've said, and trains them to use them for his benefit. He possesses some kind of dark chakra that helps him keep everyone under control. That is sort of a visual jutsu, I think... His Kekkei Genkai. We know he's from another continent across the ocean, from the Village Hidden in the Fir he destroyed on his own. As we have heard, he destroyed that village because his rivals, the Shin-Lin clan, ruled it. He wanted to rule it himself, but the leader of the Shin-Lin clan - the wielder of Black Eye: Hell Horse Release Jutsu, Ikari Lin - opposed him. So, Akuno blew up the entire village, annihilated the Shin-Lin clan along with the other innocent citizens of the village, and killed his rival, Ikari. He even made sure his children would be killed, so that the Hell Horse spirit he wielded wouldn't find any vessel to move in and continue living. Now, he's formed a rogue ninja army that he controls with his visual jutsu and dark powers, so that he could take over the whole world. He isn't scared of tailed beasts, because after he's defeated the Hell Horse spirit, he doesn't think anything can really stand in his way anymore. That's the whole story."

"Wait, if he knew the Hell Horse spirit you talk about didn't have any other body to move in, and so it vanished, why is it then that he's ordered you to search for the Black Eye Jutsu?" Naruto grew confused, "It just doesn't make sense..."

"It is because he still feared that some of its chakra may have been left around..." Yowai answered, "He remembered that Ikari had a lot of children - eight of them - so, at least one of them could still be alive. What's more, if the Hell Horse loses its physical vessel, it doesn't necessarily mean it vanishes. The Hell Horse spirit is in fact the eternal light energy of the world that dwells everywhere and gives us additional strength to live, apart from the chakra. In other words, the souls of humans came from that initial energy which, after losing those parts dispatched into the earthly beings as their souls, took form of a yellow Hell Horse. But that's just a legend of the east. Main thing is that the Hell Horse spirit never dies out."

"Oh, that explains it," Naruto said.

"Yowai, we need to know where Akuno's hideout is," Lao said, "We are Ikari's children, all the eight of us. I'm the eldest, and I hold the Diyuma spirit. We must stop Akuno before he takes over the world."

"Yes, I figured out you guys were his children, but all the eight of you have survived?" Yowai was astonished, "Akuno told us he killed one, and chopped one's head off! And the others were wounded to death..."

"I saved them all." Lao sighed. "You see, my Diyuma spirit isn't as strong as my father's, because my father, Ikari, possessed the whole of it, and I dispatched the parts of my spirit into my siblings, adding more stamina to their chakra. So, they came back to life, and the ones who were wounded, healed up. Mao was the one who was killed," she pointed at Mao, who shyly smiled, "And Nao... he was the one who lost his head," she pointed at Nao, whose eagle eyes sparkled from under his hat and veil.

Yowai heaved a sigh:

"I'm sorry for what happened to you guys. Well then, Akuno isn't too far from here. His hideout is right on the shore of the ocean. That's where he came from."

"We will find him, then." Lao puckered.

"Thank you for giving us the information, Yowai." Mao smiled, "You've helped us a lot."

"Well, I didn't have any choice at all." Yowai bitterly chuckled. "Anyway, I hope that info will come in handy."

"Oh, it surely will!" Lao grinned.

On that day, the friends gathered around the campfire and devised their future strategy. They left Yowai tied since they still didn't completely trust him, but Mao Shin got quite interested in him.