| Salt the Earth | [May. 7th, 2014|07:49 pm] |
[Takes place May 7 and 8, Yondaime Year 5, following Grow Teeth and Pursue, contemporaneous with No Quiet Man's Descent. Warnings: contains graphic violence and potentially triggering content. Please read with an awareness of your own comfort level.]
Genma’s team arrived in Ibaragashi City with hours to kill before the strike. They used the time to explore the city itself, and verify the maps Intel had given them. The Tsuto estate was nestled in the wealthiest, most exclusive part of Ibaragashi City. It occupied half a block at the pinnacle of one of the city’s many hills, built in an era when a lack of indoor plumbing had made it de rigueur for the wealthy to live uphill of the common riffraff. Modernization had come to Ibaragashi, as it had to the rest of Fire Country, but neighborhoods long established had little incentive to change. Electric lights twinkled in Tsuto’s gardens, and clay pipes under the street carried waste water away, but the compound still reeked of pomp and privilege.
The temperature had been rising steadily since noon, and even sunset didn’t seem likely to cool things off. Muggy haloes ringed early-lit lamps, and sweat trickled down the side of Genma’s face under his mask.
Intel’s reports said Tsuto Takayoshi took dinner with his family every night at 19:00 and retired shortly afterwards. The servants ate when the family was settled for the night, often as late as 21:00. That didn’t leave a lot of time to take the staff down before a 22:00 strike time. Under cover of genjutsu, Genma and his rookies studied their options from the rooftops of Tsuto’s neighbors’ homes, then reconvened in the narrow alley between the walled plots.
There were guards patrolling the compound, unsurprisingly. Tsuto Takayoshi might have made his name importing and exporting luxury goods, but he made the bulk of his money these days lending it out at exorbitant rates of interest. His home in Ibaragashi City was also, for all intents and purposes, a private bank with enough gold inside to tempt even the most cautious thief.
And the man had just funded a failed coup.
If he were truly smart, he’d have fled Fire Country by now and sought asylum in an unallied country like Lightning or Water, but according to Intel he was confident his treachery was untraceable.
Genma was going to enjoy proving him wrong about that.
He looked at the masked faces of his companions. “I’ll take care of the household staff as planned. If you miss my radio signal, when you see the guard with the birthmark go down, that’s your cue. I’ll take him out first.”
Kakashi nodded once, sharply precise. His extreme economy of motion was the only outward sign of mission tension.
Ryouma was more animated, flexing his hands through practice seals in rapid sequence to keep his fingers limber. “Signal us if anything goes wrong,” he said.
Genma nodded and touched the collar holding his radio mike, then tapped his earpiece into place. “Radio silence unless there’s a problem,” he told them.
He got twin nods from Ryouma and Kakashi.
The crunch of feet on gravel announced the pass of one of the guards. Now was Genma’s window. He shimmied through a narrow gap at the back gate and used ninjutsu to melt into the shadows of the compound’s wall. Slipping across the courtyard was relatively easy with its many shade-casting features.
By the time a second guard rounded the corner, Genma was in position under the raised porch skirting the building.
He ghosted under the house, mentally following the blueprints they’d received from Intel. The building was traditionally constructed, raised on heavy wooden beams over a generous crawl space. There were signs of its long history at every turn—scorched wood from what could have been a disastrous fire, damp staining left by a flood long past, and drifts of unswept sawdust beneath fresh drilled holes that accommodated the snaking wires of electrification.
Above him the floor joists creaked as someone moved within. Here the floor was wooden—a hallway—but in an adjoining space the grassy scent of fresh tatami mats showed the boundaries of one of the many living rooms. He counted off mats—twelve and a half. That made this the reception room where Tsuto entertained guests. It was unused tonight—the Tsuto clan were dining alone in the smaller family room—which made it an ideal place for Genma to sneak up into the high-beamed ceiling. He pushed the corner of one mat cautiously up and shimmied between the floor joists into the unlit room. Seconds later, the mat was back in place, and Genma was a wraith in the beams.
It was easier to move in the ceiling. The family room was set for dinner, and all six members of the Tsuto household were there: Takayoshi and his wife, his elderly parents, and two teenagers—a son and a daughter. Three servants in pale early-summer kimono served the meal. The adults in the Tsuto family were traditionally dressed as well, despite the rising heat, but both teenagers wore modern clothing. The boy, in particular, looked like he’d rather be anywhere else but at table with his parents and grandparents.
The rest of the house was still plenty busy even as the family took time to eat. There were a pair of young women folding freshly laundered clothing and putting it away, a gardener tending seedlings in a small greenhouse bright with electric light, a cook and three scullery helpers in the kitchen. The head of house staff—an older man in a starched kimono and hakama—was carefully going over paperwork at a desk in one of the smaller rooms, while his apprentice knelt beside him taking notes.
That was going to be a lot of staff to put down.
Genma slithered along the beam in the kitchen until he was just over the stove. A pair of rice cookers stood beside it, one battered and old, one brand new, both on and steaming. It was an easy guess which one held the rice for the masters and which for the servants.
A diversion now would go well for him—time to manufacture one. He cast the jutsu for a kage bunshin with a very short fuse, and sent his shadow self scuttling along the rafters into the dark. A few moments later there was a clatter in the hallway. Cook and kitchen staff all turned towards the sound, giving Genma just enough time to snake the lid of the battered rice cooker open, dump a vial of a near-flavorless knock-out-drug over the contents, and disappear again.
Then it was just a matter of continuing to wait. The clone ended itself as soon as its mission was complete, dumping a brief memory of knocking a wall scroll down into Genma’s awareness.
By the time the family was settling down in their quarters and the servants sitting down to their meal, Genma was tired of watching and waiting. He hoped Ryouma and Kakashi had managed to acquire themselves good spots to launch their assault from.
Fortunately, it didn’t take long for his drug to start to work. Sleepy servants excused themselves one by one, leaving only the kitchen staff yawning and shuffling through cleanup. When the youngest and smallest of them slumped unconscious in a corner, the other two were too drugged themselves to notice. Moments later, they were down, too. Genma sent another clone to scout the servants’ quarters. It reported back quickly: the only ones in the household still awake were the guards, the family members, and their hunter. |
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