| [Jan. 15th, 2017|07:28 pm] |
This entire region of Water Country seemed to be nothing but marsh. There were rises here and there like the one where they’d found Raidou and Kimiko, and sparse groves of trees that loomed up out of the mist, but for the most part, the weak, fog-filtered morning light revealed a monotonous and bleak landscape of bogs and reeds. It was hopeless to look for tracks; the mud swallowed every footprint almost before it was laid down.
They almost missed the first corpse.
Ryouma, who’d run point since he’d caught up, was the first to spot it. His hand came up, signalling for a halt. A shoulder and arm protruded from the mud, and a black-forged shuriken lay half sunken in a clump of marsh grass.
Genma and Ryouma worked together to haul the body free of the muck. It was a man about their own age, in a uniform that looked eerily like their own ANBU uniforms. Dark underpinnings, this one with sleeves. A heavy, armored vest in a dull brown over that, with epaulettes stamped with Kirigakure’s insignia. His face mask was a simple oval, with slit eyes and a yellow crescent arcing under each cheek. Kiri’s four wavy lines decorated the forehead.
Once the body was out of the water, it was plain how he’d died. A darkening purple mass of shredded bowel spilled from a wound just below the edge of the man’s vest.
“Messy,” Raidou said. “But looks like Hound.”
Kimiko took a sharp breath. “He’s a Hunter-nin.” Her voice was laced with fear.
Genma looked at her squarely for the first time since Fukuda’s death. Her face was a little rounder, her eyes a darker shade, but all he could see was the woman Ryouma had tried to kill and Genma had once saved. Who’d been their enemy, then their ally.
“So are we.”
Kimiko’s brows knitted in horror. “You’re—”
“We’ll find your baby, and we’ll get you out of this country,” Genma said. “Trust us. Your sister did.”
Raidou added, with a faint, grim smile, “You’ll also note how this guy is dead, but Hound isn’t.”
Kimiko held Genma’s gaze a second longer, then looked past him to the body. She shuddered once, but said nothing more.
Ryouma prodded at the ninja’s stiffening neck. “He’s got a radio collar.”
“Is it still live?” Genma asked.
Ryouma shoved the dead man’s jaw up to get to the radio collar’s latch. He flicked it open, pulled the collar and its earpiece free, and twisted the dial. There was a thin static crackle, and then tinny, distinct words interrupted by bursts of electrical interference. “—he’s up———try to flank———watch your six—”
Genma looked at Ryouma. “Has to be lightning jutsu. Our radios did that when Hound was fighting—” He stopped himself before he said Iebara’s name. He’d already revealed more than he should have, when he’d told Kimiko they were ANBU.
Ryouma nodded, straightening from his crouch with the radio collar dangling from his hand. Something on the misty horizon caught his attention; he shielded his eyes and squinted into the distance. “Is that smoke?” |
|