Author's Note: I'm probably out of pocket tomorrow for a Superbowl party, so here is the update early.
(AU?) Interlude: Mask Off
"Halt!"
I looked to the guard at the gate with a confused, friendly expression. I was a civilian facing a ninja; confused and friendly was always a good expression to have.
"May I help you, honored ninja?" I asked, bowing deeply from my seat atop the wagon's bench.
"Passport."
"My what now?"
"Your passport! Your documents proving that you're allowed to be here!"
"Sir...I'm confused. I don't know what you mean by 'passport'. I've never heard of anything like that. My name is Tanaka. I've been trading here for six years. I'm known to every merchant in the city. Heck, most of this"—I jerked a thumb towards the back of my wagon, currently filled with boxes and barrels—"is an order from the head of House Obara. Medicine, foodstuffs, silks, glass, and fine wines. I have the manifest with his signature right here—" I started to reach into my pouch to produce the relevant document and froze as the ninja was suddenly in front of me, hand upraised to kill, thumb and forefinger spread into a Y with a glowing arc of electricity between them.
"Whoa, whoa!" I said, shrinking back with my hands in the air. "I'm sorry! I'm just a merchant. I was going to show you my manifest—my papers! That's what you wanted, right? My papers, proving that I'm right to be here?"
In one smooth motion, he released the jutsu, dragged me out of the wagon by my shirt, slapped me upside the head with enough force to spin me around, and shoved me into the dirt. "Don't get smart with me, you little shit. You said you didn't have a passport. Were you lying to a law officer?"
"No, no! I'm sorry, sir, very sorry!" I bowed, full dogeza, my nose pressed into the dust of the road. Fang was never a well-watered country and they'd been having a drought lately. The ground was so dry it had cracked in places.
"Sir, I don't know specifically what you mean by 'passport'," I gabbled out, not lifting my head. "Maybe that started after I was last here? I do have my manifest, proving that I'm delivering for a citizen of your fine nation. I know that processing such paperwork can be time-consuming and annoying...a friend of mine mentioned that there was expedited processing available for a fee? Something about ten thousand ryō to cover the cost of having an off-duty magistrate come back on shift long enough to review the documents? I have the money in my cart...if you wanted to take it and give it to the magistrate so they could review my bona fides, that—"
"Are you trying to bribe me, you little fuck?!" He kicked me in the ribs, hard enough to make me oof and go sprawling.
Yes, duh. "No sir, of course not, sir!" Why did I have to get the one sagebedamned honest customs agent in the Elemental Nations?
"You people. All you foreigners. You sicken me," the guard said. "Constantly creeping into our country, causing trouble, spreading disease. Poisoning us, stealing our bloodlines. Drug addicts and rapists, all of you. The ones who aren't spies, anyway. Are you a spy, scum?"
"No sir! Just a civilian merchant, sir!" I pressed my nose a little harder into the ground.
"We'll see about that. Come on, you're going to meet the Great Leader."
The what now?
He grabbed me by the wrist and hauled me up into an extremely effective come-along hold that had me up on my toes and yelping in pain.
"Sir, please, my wagon! I can't just leave it there. Someone—ow!—someone will steal all my goods and I'll be ruined! Please sir, those goods are for your people, bought and paid for!"
"Shut the fuck up, pissant." He cranked my arm a little tighter; I yowled in pain but I forced myself not to struggle. If struggling didn't rip my shoulder apart, it would piss him off.
Still, apparently my words had made an impact. "Jun!" he shouted. "Bring the corpse worm's wagon along to the Great Leader."
Jun, a maybe-fourteen-year-old, saluted in a fashion that was not the way Fang had done it for the last forever. He thumped his chest twice with one hand and motioned as though throwing his heart at my captor. I made a note of the gesture; something had changed in Fang, and the sooner I could figure out what it was, the more likely I could get out of this without violence happening.
"Please, sir, my wagon," I said, making my voice as obsequious as possible, "it's full of fragile and perishable items and Clan Lord Obara is going to be upset if they're damaged. Would it be possible—ow!"
"Say another word, you ugly little corpse worm. I dare you."
Now that just seemed unkind. Yes, the people of Fang tended to be darker than those from farther east, where I'd been born, and thus we were paler, but not so much that we could be rightly be compared to the pallid maggots that one found in well-decomposed corpses. Yes, I'd heard the term 'corpse worm' before, but only in whispers. It wasn't something that polite company used, nor anyone who wanted to maintain decent trade relations with outsiders. Not that there wasn't a streak of xenophobia and racism towards foreigners in Fang's culture, but they kept it carefully masked when dealing with outsiders like me, people who could help them. Heck, usually they wouldn't even
refer to 'the W word', as they called it in front of the foreign-born. Something had changed a lot in Fang, and it had done so very quickly.
Still, I didn't say a word. Clearly, I had used up this man's supply of patience. Rotten little turd.
Seriously, what had happened?! Fang had been a nice enough place, just a few years ago. Sure, it had its problems—it treated its civilians as an underclass, medicine was hard to come by unless you were wealthy, and the literacy rate was lower than one would find in more enlightened nations. Still, it was nice enough. Most of the people were friendly, excited to chat with a foreigner over a mug of something—especially if that something was imported cider being given out as free samples.
No, this was decidedly weird and I had no idea how it happened. Worse, what if it spilled out of the borders of Fang?
Fang was notable for only two things: its mines and its military. They supplied something like twelve percent of all the copper, gold, and tin mined in the Elemental Nations and for whatever reason their ninja birthrate was ludicrously high. Other countries' populations were a fraction of a percent ninja—Fire had three hundred thousand people, of whom only fifteen hundred were ninja. Rock had perhaps two hundred thousand, of whom about eleven hundred were ninja. The rest were roughly the same.
The entire nation of Fang was perhaps forty thousand souls, barely larger than some major cities, but they had
eleven hundred ninja. Heck, they even had an S-ranker, a boast that most of the minor nations could not make. Granted, Yodogawa Minori wasn't quite in the same league as Fire's Sannin or Namikaze Minato, or Earth's Ōnoki, but by all reports she was strong enough that even those luminaries would prefer not to cross jutsu with her. Fortunately, the Chūnin Exams were in Sand this year and she had been in attendance when I left there, so I at least shouldn't have to worry about an angry S-rank ninja crashing down on my head.
Not that it mattered, of course. Even a genin could kill a civilian like me, not even needing to break a sweat in the process. Still, one heard rumors about S-rank ninja...that the way they gained their power was by drinking the souls of their slain opponents. If a genin killed me, I would pass on to the Pure Lands. If the legends were true and an S-ranker killed me, I would simply be consumed for all time.
My captor was hustling me along at a good rate and the city of Hidden Jaw wasn't that large. We had arrived at our destination: a building that was both massive and massively ugly, right in one of the spendiest parts of town. It was a full four stories tall and the doors were enormous, six inches thick with tacky gold embossings. The entryway was fully large enough to drive a wagon through when the doors were swung open like this.
Wildly impractical doors. They couldn't be opened or closed quickly in case of an attack, and there were no scrape marks on the ground, which means the doors didn't fit flush, so cold air would leak in during the winter. Also, I could see that the hinges were iron, not steel. Fang had wild temperature swings between its hot summers and frigid winters; over time those hinges would warp and the doors would be stuck. Impressive but impractical. Whoever had selected them was ignorant of architecture and cared about appearance over function. Could I use that?
I glanced back and could see Jun a few blocks away, driving my wagon towards us at speed. The oxen were tired but they knew what it meant when they were walking through a city: the trip was over, they were being taken to a stable where they would be unharnessed and put into warm, dry stalls with lots of food and water. They were plenty anxious to get here, and, if anything, Jun was having to hold them back. Best of all, nothing had shifted in the cargo bed so far as I could tell. Thank the Sage for that.
I was hustled inside and along several corridors. My captor spoke to a variety of servants, all of whom assured him that yes, Great Leader Kirifuda was sitting in audience in the main room.
"Please sir, I'm unfamiliar with the customs and don't wish to be rude," I said to the ninja behind me, not looking behind me as I spoke. He was no longer twisting my arm up, instead letting me walk ahead with only the occasional shove if I moved too slowly or choke-inducing yank to the collar if I moved too fast. "Could you please tell me how to address this man that you are taking me to?"
"You will not address him unless he speaks to you," said my angry and xenophobic ninja escort. "If he graces you with his words, you will reply swiftly and briefly. The last words out of your corpse worm mouth will be 'Great Leader'. You will not look upon him; he is too holy for your pig-fucking eyes. You will take dogeza and keep your filthy eyes down."
Well, poop. That was going to make this challenging. Always easier to talk your way out of a bad spot when you were able to see the people you were talking to and adjust your words based on their visible emotional cues.
"Thank you, honored ninja," was all I said.
I was shoved into a grand hall at the center of the building. It was stupidly large, eighty feet on each side and the ceiling went up a full two floors. We had come through the south side; there were four massive fireplaces along the east and west walls, each of them large enough to roast an ox. There was no way they would be sufficient to heat this room in the winter. There would be ice on the water pitchers.
There were crowds of people on both sides of the room, at least several hundred of them. They each wore long robes and a strangely-shaped hat with a wide brim. The robes were colored like straw and the hats had gold stitching. There was variety in their shoes, but none of those shoes were practical for actually walking down a road, much less the wilderness.
At the door was a carpet. A monstrosity of red and gold thread fully twelve feet wide, it ran from the door up the length of the room to a six-step dais atop which sat a Sagecursed throne. An actual throne.
In my travels, I had met literally hundreds of ninja, including multiple Kage. None of them were so pretentious as to use a throne. Sure, some Daimyo used them, but...
Of course, the throne was not the astounding thing. No, the astounding thing was the corpulent little toad of a man sprawled across that throne was clearly not a ninja.
He was tall, I'll give him that. Six feet, at least. Probably almost that tall lying down, too. Folds of fat dripped off of him like a grease candle melting in the sun. His neck had wattles and his ugly squinched-up face had enough chins that I didn't manage to count them all before I hit the ground.
I went to full dogeza, taking advantage of the fact that my face was hidden to sort rapidly through my brief impression of the 'Great Leader's face. His hair was straight and had been died a rich bronze color, but the dye was inexpertly applied and patchy. There were some flyaways that suggested he might have a combover for a bald spot. He had painted his face a pale gold-yellow, but the paint was badly done and clearly showed a rim of night-dark skin around his eyes and at the edges of his face. That suggested he had done it himself instead of having an expert do it. Didn't trust attendants? Did he fear the possibility of a coup? How was a civilian even in charge here?
Meanwhile, my captor spoke to the 'Great Leader', explaining that I was an illegal immigrant, probably a spy, who had been captured sneaking into the city.
'Sneaking into the city?' I rolled up to the front gate in an oxcart! I had a legal cargo!
"These people," the Great Leader said, the tone suggesting that he was shaking his head. "They're scum, as everyone knows. You did well to catch him, Gota. You're the best. Isn't he the best, everyone?"
The entire crowd, multiple hundreds of people, sounded off like a fucking temple chorus.
"He is the best, Great Leader!"
"Please, Great Leader, I—" Every scrap of breath left my body and the world went white as Gota kicked me in the danglies.
I am going to see you die for that, was the first thought that came to mind as I got myself back under control. Granted, not a sensible thing for a civilian to think towards a ninja. Still.
"Don't talk to me, scum," the Great Leader said. "Scum like you doesn't talk to me. Do they, everyone?"
"No, Great Leader!" chorused the crazy-pants crowd.
"What were you doing here, scum?"
What the fuck? He
just said that I wasn't to talk to him and now he was asking me questions? Pick a path, asshole.
"I am but a humble merchant, come to make a delivery, Great Leader."
"A delivery. I know what you're really here for. You're here to steal our goats. That's what all you types want to do."
Beneath the cover of my down-turned face, I brushed one thumb across the top of the very large ring that I wore on my right middle finger. The top half slid off and I caught it in my palm. Below the now-removed cover was a mirror an inch long and half that wide—basically, the maximum size that could fit on the first joint of my finger. It was extremely expensive, perfectly shaped glass that had been carefully polished to render a clear image with little distortion.
I advanced my hands just slightly, tilting them so that I could see the fat pig's face reflected in the mirror.
"Answer him, pig-fucker!" Gota demanded, kicking me in the thigh.
Damn it, Gota! Cut it out! You told me not to speak unless he asked a question and he didn't ask a question!
"Great Leader, I am not a thief. I have a delivery of cargo, bought and paid for by Lord Obara—"
The Great Leader spat off the side of his throne. "Obara was a traitor. A spy from Earth who snuck in here and pretended to be one of us."
What? Obara's great-great-grandparents had been among the founders of Hidden Jaw! And if he was a spy from Earth then he couldn't be a traitor to Fang. That wasn't how that worked. To be a traitor you had to be loyal in the first place. That was simply what words meant.
"I killed him," the Great Leader said. "Killed him myself. Cut him open with my own hands, let his guts spill all over the floor. He was a traitor. Everyone knows that."
Fatty, there is no way you did that. Obara Matsuo was an accomplished swordsman and even at sixty he was deadly with a blade—for a civilian, anyway. I'd be surprised if you can even walk a quarter mile without needing to stop for a rest; Obara would have carved you like the slab of rotting bacon you clearly are. Rotworms in your brain, maybe? ...Nah, any rotworm that tried to take a bite out of this guy would puke it back up again and look for a better meal. Assuming it didn't simply die.
"What are you really doing here, corpse worm?"
"Answer him!" Gota said, kicking me before I could even open my mouth.
"Great Leader, I promise that I am simply a merchant. I have a cargo that perhaps would interest you? Fine wines, rare and exotic foods, spices, beautiful glassware to bedazzle and beautify your lovely home." I quickly hurried to add, "Great Leader" on the end so that maybe Goda wouldn't need to wear out his kickin' foot. Too late, or maybe he just felt he needed the practice.
Behind me, outside of the throne room, someone screamed. I heard the familiar sound of rock exploding into fragments, then more screams.
Damn it, you two. Ten minutes. You couldn't give me ten sagebedamned minutes? Maybe I could— Oh, whatever.
I reached out, grabbed Gota's ankle, and yanked it towards me while simultaneously snapping his knee with my other palm. He went down with a girlish shriek and I was on my feet. I stamped on his neck hard enough to snip his head off, just to be sure. ("Always make sure!" Sensei had always said.)
Half a dozen ninja were descending on me; I sliced the first two in half with a Lightning Lash, then hurled a Snow Blind seal to my left, turning that part of the room into a blizzard of reflective and very sharp particles that rendered vision impossible, breathing difficult, and moving painful. Three other ninja had been shoving their way through the crowd and now they were too busy gasping for air and trying not to be blinded by running through tiny little floating knives.
I felt the other two coming through the door behind me. A finger-length snake went past me, biting one of my remaining attackers on the neck. He spasmed and hit the floor, his body thrashing in seizures. A human head flew by, high and to the right, moving at speeds sufficient to cave in the chest of Fatty even through the protective armor of his blubber.
Meanwhile, the CrazyPants Chorus was screaming and running in all directions.
Moments later, the room was empty and the scene contained. I rounded on my team.
"Damnit, Sunny! You didn't have to kill him!" I pointed dramatically at the very dead blob of lard on the throne.
She glowered back at me. "I think you mean, 'thank you, most wonderful Tsunade, for acting before the local Kage-lite could get his ass in gear!'"
"Are you fucking insane? You think that blob of lard was a Kage-lite? He was the civilian we were here to interrogate!"
She blinked. She looked at the puddle of lard, then at me, then shrugged. "Oops?"
"Oops? Seriously, that's the best you've got?" I scrubbed both hands over my face in exasperation. "Damnit, Tsunade. Months of painstaking intelligence gathering and prep, weeks of traveling through that shithole of a desert in an oxcart, I get in front of him and you blow the whole thing in the first five minutes?"
"How was I supposed to know that was him? He was sitting on a throne in a ninja village! Of course he was a ninja!"
"Dear sister," Orochimaru said, his voice dust dry, "did you, perhaps, not read the briefing book?"
She hesitated.
"Oh my fucking gods," I said, gaping at her. "Seriously? You seriously didn't read the briefing book?"
"What, it was boring! You're in charge of that bullshit, why should I worry about it?"
"I— How could—" I was so angry I couldn't even get words out, so I forced myself to stop and take a breath.
"Tsunade," I said after a few moments. "That slob over there somehow built a big enough cult following to take over one of the strongest minor nations. He convinced almost every ninja in the village to obey him. He got the local S-ranker to hand over all administrative control of the city. He did it in under a year. What does that sound like to you?"
"I dunno. Genjutsu, maybe?"
"Yes. Except he was a civilian,
as it said in the briefing book! We needed to know how he did it. If we were able to do it ourselves, we could have used it to bloodlessly conquer the rest of the world. Except now we can't learn how he did it, because you fucking killed him." I paused, frowning as something occurred to me. "Wait, why are you guys even here? You were supposed to stay in the hidden compartment on the wagon."
Orochimaru shifted uncomfortably. Tsunade snorted and hooked a thumb at him. "This one here gave us away. Shifted at just the wrong moment, some guards heard it and started investigating the wagon."
"I had a cramp," the Snake Sannin said uncomfortably.
Jiraiya took a deep breath and let it out very slowly.
"Un-fucking-believable. Come on, let's go check Fatty's quarters. Maybe he'll have a diary or an evil accomplice or something else that can tell us how he pulled this shit off."
