They were watching her like very polite predators watching prey. Waiting for her to make her decision, a reaction ready for every possibility. If she made the wrong one, was this the point where they finally mutinied and murdered her?
No, that wasn’t fair. They weren’t all like that psycho Kagome, and even he was now loyally following her around like a particularly disturbing pet dog. These were people she’d chosen to trust, and Nikkō did not want to be the kind of person who withdrew her trust at the first sign of uncertainty. (Though she couldn’t forget that the last time she’d made a conscious decision to trust them, it had very nearly got her killed.)
Anyway, she shouldn’t be making this decision based on their feelings. Every child at the Academy knew about Hatake Sakumo and how many people died when he put his team ahead of the mission. Nor could she show weakness as a leader in front of the Cold Stone Killers just because she’d decided to trust them with her life.
She couldn’t put off thinking about the ship any longer. There was a technique taught to Nara children which Shika had passed on to her, something used in playground games where the guard captain had to pick the killer out of a line-up while the killer had to feign perfect innocence by anticipating the guard captain's questions.
Nikkō was about to find out which of the two she was.
-o-
Nikkō staggered to her feet as a yakuza on the deck of the Sunset Racer. Where was the VIP? No sign of him, not even a body. His two ninja bodyguards were missing as well. One of Nikkō’s friends was dead, but the rest of them didn’t have a scratch on them.
What did she remember? A sudden, unnatural fog. Great shapes looming out of it, hunched over with huge claws and scales so hard the ninja's weapons bounced off them. So terrifying she couldn’t move, only stand there and stare at them. One shape vanishing in a puff of smoke as a ninja finally killed it. Then herself, the client and the other yakuza falling down for no reason, one by one, like the drops of a water clock.
-o-
Nikkō was a yakuza boss who’d just received a terrible report. Her ten underlings described an encounter in which mysterious monsters had attacked the ship, then disappeared with her banker while ignoring nearly everyone else. Any powerful and wealthy individual would make sure to have a ninja on retainer to consult about ninja matters, and any consultant worth their salt would recognise the description of pangolin summons. From there, it would not be difficult to learn that they belonged to Leaf’s Pangolin Summoner.
How did a yakuza boss react to the kidnapping of one of her most valued henchmen?
First off, she’d have to figure out how Leaf, a foreign power, had known about Goda, and how they learned which ship he was on, when it was departing and what course it would take. If there was a mole within her organisation, or a spy watching it from the outside, that was a top priority matter. Whatever intelligence resources she had, she’d apply them. She might even hire ninja to track down the spy and make a very public example of them.
More importantly, the yakuza were obsessed with not showing weakness. If someone dealt such a powerful blow to her organisation and she let it go unanswered, her own rivals would devour her within the week. And that meant she had to declare war on Leaf—not openly, because yakuza bosses didn’t get that way by being suicidal, but she had to get revenge by whatever means she could in order to restore her group's honour in the eyes of the underworld (as well as her own).
(Nikkō had to admit she had no idea what a yakuza group could actually do to harm Leaf, but she was confident she didn’t want them to do it.)
-o-
Nikkō was a spymaster for a faction hostile to Leaf and she’d just been sold some interesting information by a yakuza boss with a grudge.
How much use could she squeeze out of it?
She now knew that Leaf’s Pangolin Summoner was someone they could and did deploy on stealth missions, on a team with some mysterious new shinobi who used mist to knock out enemies en masse from range. Gas users were very rare and dangerous, and Leaf had none listed in the Bingo Book, so that was valuable information in and of itself. As was the fact that this particular gas user preferred to spare civilians—that was the kind of identifying mark you used to track a particular ninja’s handiwork.
But the gas user’s actions didn’t quite make sense. What kind of idiot rained sleeping gas down on allies engaged in melee, instead of opening with it and then stepping in to mop up the survivors? Perhaps it wasn’t sleeping gas after all, but something more targetable? That would make sense of the reports (for the yakuza had made sure to sell her every last scrap) that there was no sense of inhaling gas, no gradual clouding of consciousness, only fully awake people instantly collapsing one after another. Nikkō would make a note, and watch out for reports of Leaf ninja knocking out groups of people in the future.
Now, how far could she make this information go? There was nothing there with which to strike at Leaf directly, but certainly there would be plenty of people—such as other spymasters—prepared to trade for it. Other enemies of Leaf especially. Perhaps Mist? After all, it was a given that they had agents in the region.
-o-
Nikkō was a Leaf team leader whose reasoning had left her with only one conclusion. Setting Goda and the ninja aside, everyone on the deck of the ship had to die.
Still, the sailors below didn’t see what happened. Maybe they could still pass it off as a chakra monster attack?
-o-
Nikkō was a sailor, one of many stirring to consciousness all at once. A faint mist had seeped down from the main deck, and then suddenly they’d all started dropping like flies.
Naturally, she ran on deck to see what was going on. But there was no one there. The client and his bodyguards were all gone as if they had never been. That certainly sounded like a chakra monster’s work—use strange powers to put everyone to sleep, then eat whoever was in sight and swim off satisfied. Nikkō could only thank her lucky stars that it hadn’t felt like dessert.
Except if it was a monster that preyed on everyone on deck, why was there a big hole in the ship? And why was it above the waterline, instead of below, where you’d expect a sea monster to come from if it wanted to get into the ship?
And what had happened to those four yakuza guys, and a bunch of the other sailors? Did a second monster really break into the ship, kill a few people, and then disappear while leaving the rest unharmed?
Something just didn’t add up.
They’d hurry back to Ise as fast as they could. They’d probably get a visit from the yakuza, and have to explain what happened, and pray that they were believed. And they’d certainly tell the story in Ise’s many bars for a free drink—who wouldn’t want to hear how fifty sailors were spared by not one but two chakra monsters?
And then they’d get visits from local ninja, who doubtless get hired to escort ships, and would be very interested in hearing about a sea monster capable of taking out two chūnin and attacking ships on a major route. (To say nothing of any other ninja interested in Goda's fate.)
Nikkō turned the scenarios round and round in her head, but the final logic was inexorable.
-o-
She was aware that she’d been standing there, thinking, for too long. The others were still watching, waiting for her to dig her own grave. But she wasn’t ready to do it just yet.
“Kurosawa, Mori, go find Goda’s cabin. As the Hokage said, you’re looking for documents, valuables, and any personal effects that might be useful in the interrogation.
“Wakahisa, Ishihara, search below decks for anything suspicious. If any of the crew turn out to have chakra reserves so they’re still conscious, take care of it.
“I’ll stay here and prepare the prisoners for transport.”
Ishihara looked at the three bodies with rapid understanding. “Are you sure you don’t want me to—“
“Go,” Nikkō said firmly and with as little emotion as possible.
Once the others had left, she looked at Kagome, who, of course, knew.
“Kagome, make preparations to scuttle the ship.”
There was one person on the team, at least, who wouldn’t judge her for doing what needed to be done. If anything, she expected him to start capering like the madman he was at the idea of blowing up potential threats to his team.
She felt even worse when instead, he cast a thoughtful look in the direction Kurosawa had gone, then gave her a serious nod before heading down the stairs.
Then she was alone.
Mori had estimated at least fifty people on a ship this size, minus however many Pankurashun had killed (Nikkō had chosen not to ask). Even if they were only civilians, when Nikkō visualised fifty people all together in one place…
Mercifully, her training took over and she remembered.
Leaf was a unique village where the ninja functioned as the guardians and shepherds of the common people, keeping them safe from predators both monstrous and human, and guiding them to use their labour and skills to the benefit of all. Leaf ninja died every day to protect that village and the ideals it stood for, and if sometimes common people had to die to protect them in turn, then that was regrettable but not unjust.
You couldn’t start doubting a fundamental truth like that. You couldn’t start thinking that civilian lives were too valuable to sacrifice. Civilians were everywhere in their uncountable thousands, but every time one of the handful of Leaf ninja died, it was like a star going out in the sky. Every death a step towards eternal darkness.
And if the village died, then humanity ended, as simple as that. The next time war consumed the continent, Leaf wouldn’t be there to bring peace. The other villages would tear each other apart in their greed and their hatred, and the chakra monsters would have whatever was left in the end.
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Only fifty lives, Nikkō said to herself again. A drop in the ocean. Nothing when it came to protecting the world. So why…?
She looked down at the bodies she was mechanically stripping of their equipment, but they held no answers for her.
-o-
“Minami? Minami?” Hazō had to raise his voice to get her attention, so engrossed was she in tying up the… prisoners? Come to think of it, she’d used the plural before too.
That was a good sign. If she wanted them kept alive, then she might be more open to the idea of sparing everyone else as well. He’d had time to think while he and Keiko had searched the cabin, and come up with a plan of attack if she wasn’t.
“Kurosawa,” Minami said flatly. “And I see the rest of you are here as well. Report.”
Keiko offered her a thick ledger. “We found this among Goda’s belongings. The contents are in code, but given his role among the yakuza, I believe its role is obvious. This will be a very valuable tool should Leaf require leverage over Goda’s group.”
“There’s also this,” Hazō said, holding up the sketch. “It was hidden under his stack of spare clothes.”
The piece of paper depicted a teenage girl, with long braided hair and a shy smile. Hazō couldn’t stop himself from wondering whether she was Goda’s daughter (which made him feel sad) or his lover (which made him feel creeped out, but still sad), or just someone important to the man they were about to kidnap and send to his death. Hazō didn’t want to think about what the yakuza went home to after a day of murdering and racketeering and throwing wild parties. Had that client from way back in Iron had a family?
He couldn’t let himself think like this. The yakuza were enemies. They were all terrible, terrible people who dedicated their lives to profiting from other people’s suffering. Every time one died, the world became a slightly better place. If he couldn’t even kill his emotions enough to deal with them, how was he supposed to be enough of a ninja to accomplish his own goals?
And how many deaths had he and his team already caused, directly and indirectly? How much pain? Had he ever tried to keep count, his inner voice asked, or did none of that matter anymore now that he’d decided he was a good person? Did he have the right to condemn the yakuza while knowing that, for as long as he was a ninja, his death toll would just keep rising? Did he have the right to mourn his victims even as he followed a path which would only make more?
“Anything else?” asked Minami, the experienced chūnin who’d probably long since made her peace with the moral problems of shinobi life, not that he was at all jealous.
“Not that we were able to find,” Keiko said. “I would surmise that any other valuables, such as money, would be kept on Goda’s person. Since you have already bound him… very professionally, it may be best to leave a full body search until he reaches Leaf.”
Hazō stared at the near-cocoon that was just about recognisable as their target. Either Minami had discovered in their absence that Goda was secretly an escapology-specialist jōnin, or she’d started tying him up and somehow forgotten to stop.
Minami glanced down at Goda and blinked.
“Uh… Wakahisa. Report.”
“All clear,” Noburi said neutrally. “Nothing suspicious apart from some corpses and a honking great hole in the side of the ship. Everyone else is down. Minami… are we going to—“
“Kagome. Report.”
Kagome-sensei looked between the members of Team Uplift, then back at Minami.
“Set the charges. Made sure there won’t be any smoke going up in case some stinker is watching from the coast. Ready to start the fuse whenever.”
Set the charges?
“Minami,” Hazō said quickly, “are you planning to kill the civilians? Because I actually have some suggestions about dealing with them. Would you mind hearing me out?”
Minami gave him a weary look, as if she knew what was coming and wasn’t happy about it.
“Go ahead, Kurosawa.”
“I think we should spare them. Nobody saw our faces, or the rest of us for that matter. There’s no evidence of our involvement. And besides, given how far we are from Ise, it’ll take a long time for them to sail back there, and even longer for word to get out. We’re in no real danger.”
Minami gave him a funny look. “Kurosawa, they’re six hours’ sailing away from Ise because that’s how long it’s been since they set sail. That means it’ll take them six hours to get back if the weather’s on their side. Maybe more, maybe less. And I guess they’ll have to repair the rudder first, but none of us know how long that’ll take.
“As for chakra monster attacks, are you willing to bet that word takes time to get out when there are sixty people talking about it, and ten of those are going to run to report to their yakuza boss?
“But not the point. Nobody is going to believe it’s a chakra monster attack. Pankurashun climbing in from above the waterline and then killing a few people before making a polite exit makes sure of that. Chakra monsters don’t stop killing just because their victims fall asleep – in fact, if you assume that Pankurashun was the one who made them fall asleep, it’s even weirder how he left all the sleepers alone.
“Also, don’t forget that other people aren’t stupid. If an attack makes a VIP and his bodyguards disappear but the civilians are left untouched, it doesn't matter what the cover story is. People will draw conclusions.”
Damn. Damn damn damn. Hazō still thought there was a possibility people would think it was a chakra monster attack—the pangolins looked like chakra monsters, they did chakra monster-like damage and they’d left corpses that looked like they’d been slaughtered by a chakra monster—but suddenly the odds didn’t sound so high that he was prepared to argue for them.
“All right,” he shifted ground, “if we can’t trick people into thinking it’s a chakra monster attack, we can still use disinformation to get what we want. We’ll have to kill the yakuza after all, but…" he hesitated, “I guess that isn’t really a great loss.”
“So what’s your plan?” Minami asked sceptically, but also with what Hazō wanted to believe was a hint of hope. Or was that just wishful thinking?
“We disguise one of the yakuza as Goda, with a hood over his face, and make a show of killing him in front of the sailors, and dump the lot overboard. We talk about how we were hired to kill him because he messed up, and that we’ve burned his documents—the ones we’re actually taking. Then we tell them that if anyone asks, they should say it was just a chakra monster attack. They’ll do it, because we’ll be terrifying ninja who’ve just killed people in front of them.
“They won’t connect us to Leaf, everyone will think Goda’s dead, and everyone outside the ship will think it really was a chakra monster.”
To Minami’s credit, she took a few seconds to think about it.
“It’s clever. But it’s still too risky. You’re counting on fifty people—“
“Sixty people,” Noburi muttered.
“Sixty people all keeping their mouths shut in the face of investigation. And there will be an investigation because even if the yakuza buy the chakra monster story without question, which they might not, they’ll still want Goda’s ledger. You think the sailors’ story is going to hold up when they have to explain how this chakra monster went for Goda’s group while sparing the sailors and happened to eat Goda’s ledger?
“Once the yakuza start applying the pressure, at least some of those sixty are going to talk.”
“But hang on,” Noburi interjected, “so the chakra monster part is a bust. We’ve still made them think that some random ninja turned up out of nowhere and killed Goda. Why does it matter what happened if Goda’s dead and nothing’s tying it to Leaf?”
“Pangolins,” Minami said curtly.
Keiko nodded. “I see. Yes. We know that a number of sailors encountered and fought Pankurashun. We do not know how many other sailors saw him but did not engage, or were chakra-drained before they could engage. Certainly, when some unknown threat damages the ship and proceeds to attack the crew, I imagine there is no choice but for everyone to rally against it. There is nowhere to run in the middle of the sea.
“And of course, every sailor will pretend to us that they saw nothing because witnesses of ninja activities are known to have very short lifespans.”
“We could interrogate them,” Hazō said, but without much optimism.
“Do you trust our collective ability to get the truth out of every one of sixty sailors enough to risk a major OPSEC breach?”
Hazō didn’t answer.
“Thank you for your input, Kurosawa,” Minami said bitterly, “but my orders stand. Wakahisa, Ishihara, Kurosawa, carry the prisoners. Kagome, set the timers. Mori… Mori…”
“I will head upwards and perform a brief sweep of the area before we set off.”
“Yes. Do that.”
“Wait!” Hazō exclaimed at Kagome-sensei’s retreating back. “Minami. Captain Minami. I don’t think it’s fair to make Kagome-sensei do this alone. It’s too great a burden for one person to have to kill sixty.”
“Is that right?” Minami said in a hollow voice.
“It’s OK,” Kagome-sensei said before Minami could change her orders. “Let me do it. I… I kill people all the time, right? It won’t bother me at all. You should all get going now. I’ll catch up.”
“Let me do it with you, Kagome-sensei,” Hazō said. “I know how to prime explosive seals.”
“No way!” Kagome-sensei snapped. “You’ll—I’ll—It’s bad luck for two sealmasters to blow up one ship! Everybody knows that!”
He stormed off before anyone could try to stop him.
Hazō, Minami, Noburi and Keiko exchanged confused glances, while Akane simply turned to follow Kagome-sensei with her eyes.
The team stayed and watched, by an unspoken understanding, as the Sunset Racer tore itself apart. True to Kagome-sensei’s word, not a single lick of flame escaped its shell, yet Hazō couldn’t shake the feeling that they were gazing into the flames of hell itself.
-o-
Hazō, Noburi and Akane have set off for Leaf with their three prisoners. You have ensured that they have enough skywalkers.
Minami, Keiko and Kagome are heading for Nagi Island. None of you know anything about Nagi Island. Under Keiko’s guidance, you have set a geographical landmark as a rendezvous point (skywalker perspective really helps correlate maps to reality).