Interlude: An Unfortunate Old Trapper
Previously, on Marked for Death...
"You seem quite riveted, sir," Isobe suggested quietly. "Lord Gōketsu bring you another of his ideas?"
"Hm? Oh, yes." Asuma nodded. "In spades." He pulled one sheet out of the stack that Hazō had left him, this one covered in diagrams, and held it so his secretary could read it. "It flies. You lie in here and the spirits bear you aloft. It's even possible to gain altitude if they cooperate, and you can get them to cooperate simply by giving them fire to keep them warm. The design team filled a meadow with bonfires and it was enough to keep one of these things circling for over an hour."
Isobe took the paper and studied it. "Interesting. Could you use fire jutsu to propitiate them? That could be used on the move."
"They haven't tried yet but it seems likely to me."
o-o-o-o
The guards had taken Lord Gōketsu's instructions to heart; despite the cold, they were on the perimeter and eyes-out instead of standing around the fire. Thus, they spotted the intruder immediately.
"Hey! You can't be here!"
The stranger walked towards them, waving one hand in friendly fashion. He was dressed like a hunter or trapper; layers of furs, stitched together somewhat haphazardly, rendered his body basically shapeless, gloves instead of mittens would make him more dextrous on the trap lines, and a long wool scarf encircled his neck and wrapped over his head in lieu of a hat. The scarf was dyed purple and green, suggesting that he'd been wealthier at one point, but the moth-eaten holes in his gloves said that his fortunes had changed.
"Surely you could share a bit of warmth?" he called, his voice that of an older man despite the spryness of his steps. "I've been in the woods since dawn and I can't feel my toes."
"I'm sorry, but no," Gōketsu Dairoku said firmly. A glance behind him showed that the engineers had flipped the covers over the two skyslider prototypes, but the old man must have seen them. Dairoku couldn't help but sweat at what Lord Gōketsu might say about that. There was a reason that the team worked five miles into the woods from Leaf, far from roads. It had been repeatedly impressed on them how important it was to maintain secrecy on this project. What angry spirit had led this man here, and what was Dairoku supposed to do about it?
There was no choice.
He stepped forward, hands clenched tight on the haft of his boar spear. Eight feet long, solid oak with a steelback quill as a point and another as a crossguard two feet back from the head, with a steel knob on the pommel to balance it. The spear was a simple weapon but it was enough to kill virtually anything that might still be in the area after the Gōketsu ninja did their sweep each morning. Anything he couldn't kill with the spear, he could hold in place long enough for the other guards to kill it with their own spears. What it would do to this trapper didn't bear thinking about, but at least it would be quick.
The stranger read his intent and stepped back, raising both hands in alarm. "Hey now. It's fine, I'll leave."
"I'm sorry," Dairoku said, bringing the spear into alignment with the trapper's heart. In his peripheral vision he could see Ikuo and Hakaru closing in, ready to offer support if needed. The rest of the guards had shifted to cover the empty space and were keeping one eye on the killing that was about to happen and one eye on the surrounding woods. There had been two murdersquirrel attacks today and they couldn't afford to not be vigilant. The engineers had undoubtedly stopped work to stare gormlessly, but that was fine.
"You sure we can't talk about this?" the trapper asked, fear in his voice. "I'm no easy kill, you know! Come at me with that thing and I'll gut you!" He pulled a knife from his belt and brandished it. It was an excellent tool and a serviceable weapon, twelve inches long and two inches wide at the base with a fine taper and what seemed like a good edge. Dairoku would bury it with the man so that it could protect him in the afterlife as it undoubtedly had in life.
"I'm sorry," Dairoku said again. "This area is secret. Your bad luck, old man." He lunged forward, thrusting with the spear. One clean thrust, ending it quickly so as not to cause more pain than needed.
The old man threw himself backwards and stumbled on the uneven ground, going down on his butt as the thrust went over him. Dairoku slammed the butt of the spear down, using the pommel knob like a mace, but the old man managed to roll desperately aside. He regained his feet and demonstrated the difference between a man who carried a knife and a man who knew how to use a knife: He went back instead of forwards, trying to open the distance against an opponent with a longer weapon instead of closing in where the spearpoint couldn't be brought to bear.
"I won't say anything, I promise! I swear by my father's grave, not a word!" He barely twisted aside as Dairoku thrust at him again, the point of the spear going under his arm as he sucked in his belly to avoid it. Then Ikuo and Hakaru were there, thrusting in turn.
The old man dropped to all fours, allowing the spears to cross above him. Ikuo and Dairoku had to abort their thrusts and lean back or end up stabbing each other. Meanwhile the trapper scrambled out of the circle of attackers and back to his feet, bumping into Hakaru in the process and sending him staggering.
"Look, really, I promise, not a word!" The trapper skipped back, head pivoting frantically as he tried to keep all three of the guards in sight. Unfortunately, he had gone the wrong way when he got past them and now he was backing into the clearing instead of out of it. The engineers, gathered around the big drafting table next to 89b, were watching with interest.
Ikuo lunged forward and the old man dodged clumsily aside, once more tripping on a snow-covered unevenness in the ground. He went down to hands and knees, but pushed himself up again and scrambled towards the engineers, shouting "Save me! Please help!"
The engineers laughed as the three guards went after him. The ground was rough and the old man was surprisingly quick on his feet. He reached the drafting table just as the guards reached him.
The table was fully six feet square, built onsite from components brought here in storage scrolls. It was covered in half-eaten food, drinks, and piles of papers weighed down with inkwells, canteens, scraps of unused lumber, and other random objects.
One of the engineers stuck out a leg and the old man went down, arms and chest spraddling across the table. He pulled himself up onto it and rolled across, sending one of the trays of sushi flying off into the snow but fortunately missing everything else. He swept up many of the papers as he went, clutching them to his chest with one hand and pawing at them with the other in order to get them into a more manageable stack.
"Put those back!" Michiki shouted. The chief engineer's voice started off angry and became panicked as the stranger ran for the closest bonfire. "Stop him! Don't let him destroy the designs!"
"Stay back!" The stranger held a squall of half-crumpled papers out towards the flames. "Stay back or I'll burn them all! I mean it! You'll never see your"—he looked down at the pages—"pictures again!"
By now more guards were closing in from all directions. The old man dropped one of the papers and bent to pick it up just in time for a spear to go over his head. He saw the spear at the edge of his vision and jerked upright, his shoulder bumping the haft of the spear and sending it upwards. He turned to see who was attacking him and his elbow accidentally clocked the guard in the shoulder, causing him to stumble into the old trapper. The two men bounced apart, the guard going to his knees and the trapper going backwards just in time for another spear to pass inches from his face. Two other guards dropped their spears and tried to grapple, but the old man stepped forward and turned, avoiding the first guard and hipchecking the second to knock him off his feet.
Dairoku came for the old man with a series of short, tightly controlled spear jabs at the face and chest, pressing forward with each one. The old man was studying the papers in fascination, but somehow he managed to turn and twist at just the right moment to be where the spear wasn't. Dairoku tried a quick reverse, swinging the pommel knob up, but a fur-clad boot stopped its motion before it could gain any power. The old man turned and turned again, continuing to read the papers as he pivoted up the haft of the spear and bumped Dairoku with another hipcheck that sent him sprawling.
The trapper skipped aside from two more attacks, grabbed the haft of a spear with one hand and yanked forward on it. Its wielder, already moving in that direction, overbalanced and fell on his face. The trapper stepped lightly over him, took two steps across the snow without leaving any tracks, and hopped up to sit cross-legged on the drafting table before pulling his scarf down.
"Hello!" said Asuma, Seventh Hokage, jōnin of the Leaf, and distinctly
not an old trapper. "Dairoku, Isuo, all the rest of you: My compliments on your reactions. You handled that exactly right. Michiki, this is lovely work on the drafting. Now, I would be delighted if you could give me a more detailed explanation of how the spirits work with these 'skysliders'. I thought perhaps we could try some fire jutsu, see if it makes them happy."
XP AWARD: 0 (It's an interlude.)
This was a flashback but we are still in linear time so the next chapter will continue from the end of chapter 490. Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday, January 12, 2022, at 12pm London time.
