| Incident at Shimabashi: Opening [closed to Genma] | [Sep. 16th, 2008|08:03 pm] |
Takes place in late February
It was a fluke that Genma was still in Akatani that morning. His mission had taken longer than expected, as his target had failed to appear for three whole days. Genma had lain in wait, crouched immobile, concealed by ornate architecture and shadowy genjutsu, on the tiled roof of a small outbuilding on the estate, for every one of those days. It was an excellent spot, hidden behind a fire-protection dolphin decorating the tiled rooftop, so close that he could hear the business of the household. The mistress scolding a servant for damaging the brocade on a heavy winter kimono. Cleaning girls gossiping about some local Lothario that one of the kitchen staff had been seen entertaining. Cooks preparing freshly-caught fish for the nightly meal. That had been especially trying, smelling mouthwatering odors of what was clearly daily fare for this household, while Genma had had to content himself with a sticky-dry ration bar and a few swallows of water from his canteen.
If he'd had his choice in this, he would have simply infiltrated the house in dark of night, slit the man's throat in his sleep, and left the body to stain the silken bed sheets scarlet. But Genma didn't have his choice. The target, Kitahara Yasuhiko, was a wealthy man, obviously an influential landowner or merchant of some sort. And the details of Genma's mission assignment had been very clear on the method he was to use. Kitahara was to be killed with a poison-tipped dart, on the balcony on which he took his breakfast every day, rain or shine. If he could not be killed at his breakfast, then it was to be during his after-dinner drink, also taken on that balcony. The death was evidently to be a message to parties unknown.
It wasn't important to the mission that Genma know who this man really was, or why his death, this very specifically orchestrated death, was important enough for Konoha to accept the mission and assign it to ANBU. He was there to do the job given to him by the Hokage, exactly as specified. The Intel briefing had been explicit. Unless he was detected, he was not to abort. The death must occur on that balcony, using the weapon provided to him. The hammer does not chose which nail to hit.
The weapon they'd given to him to carry out this assassination with was almost as much a kunai as a dart. A heavy faceted rod that tapered to a cruel point. At its back end there were decorative scrolls of raised gilded metal winding around the handle, forming fins to help it fly straight. They were clearly lettering of some sort, but not a script Genma had ever seen before. Nothing he could read. It had been supplied by the client, delivered to Genma by the Intel agent who'd briefed him seven days ago. Only the poison was of his own choosing--a quick-acting paralytic agent that would freeze the target's breath in his lungs and drop him helpless to cry out to his balcony floor.
If only the bastard would show up.
In the three days Genma had lain in wait, he'd grown to hate his unseen target. He was hungry and tired, cramped and sore, rained upon, chilled, bored nearly to tears, and starting to come down with a cold, and it was all the target's fault. How could he simply fail to take his breakfast and his evening drinks for three days in a row? But careful checking told Genma it was simple ill luck that kept him from completing his mission. The target remained, as far as Genma could tell, completely unaware of the threat to his life.
The first day, he had idled in the bed of his concubine and breakfasted there, then had a meeting in the evening that kept him from his usual post-dinner routine. The second day the target had failed to appear for breakfast because he was suffering from a headache, and he'd skipped his after-dinner drink on the advice of his physician, staying away from the balcony so as to avoid catching a chill from the damp night air. The third day was another morning of sexual pleasure for the target, ensconced in the arms of yet another concubine. It was another morning for Genma of aching joints, rumbling belly and frustration. That evening he'd lain in futile wait again, only to have his aims thwarted when the target was called away to dine at the home of a friend. Kitahara arrived home late, drunk, and went straight to bed. Genma curled up on his tiles and swore bitter oaths about the stupid target, his stupid mission, stupid colds, the stupid rain, and his whole stupid life.
By sunrise on the fourth day, the cold was in full bloom. Genma sniffled and spat, barely choked his meal bar down a terribly sore throat, rubbed red-rimmed eyes, and decided he'd stage the damn death if he had to, but he was not waiting another day. Fortunately for him, on the fourth day Kitahara finally appeared at breakfast on his balcony.
He was a fat man, balding, with what had obviously been a handsome face in his youth, now ravaged by years of dissolute living. A well-dressed man, in a gold brocade robe heavy enough to keep off the chill. He sat down to his breakfast--soup, smoked fish, pickled vegetables, rice, and poached egg--looked out over his gardens as the sun peered through dissipating clouds, smiled at and dismissed his servant, and declared it to be a lucky day. Five minutes later he was dead, with the ornate foreign dagger through his throat. Genma was so hungry he was tempted to steal from the dead man's breakfast. But the mission was complete, the man was dead, and the risk of being seen far to great to consider climbing up to that balcony for a slab of smoked sea bream.
The village of Akatani was nestled within the red-bluffed walls of the valley for which it was named. And the steady drizzle of the prior three days was finally gone, replaced by a weak and watery late-winter sunshine. It glinted off rust-tinted puddles, which reflected grey sky and the arching sprays of flowering plum that lined the roads and paths. Akatani was famous for its plums in summer, its blossoms at the end of winter. As Genma splashed along the rutted road, concealed in a brown rain cape and a simple henge to hide his uniform and weapons, he tried to enjoy the scenery, but all he could really think about was how much he wanted to be warm, dry, and in bed. He sneezed, hunched his shoulders, sniffled and coughed, and continued grimly on. Some missions just sucked. Obviously this was one of them.
He turned a corner and found himself in the village proper. Cooking smells from morning fires were everywhere, and a tea house on his right was serving breakfast to several customers. He was late enough at this point that he decided another half hour could hardly matter, and was about to go through the restaurant's gates when a whispery voice called out to him.
"You. The troubled young man with death on his hands, come here, boy."
Genma froze for a moment, then started on. Guilty conscience, maybe, making him think the voice was directed at him. Or the fact that there were few others on the street.
"I mean you, son. Come talk to an old woman who has something important to tell you," the voice continued. A hand beckoned from the doorway of a small candle shop.
He stopped again, turned, and looked in the door. A toothless old woman was just inside, with her thin white hair done up as elegantly as a geisha's, and robes as rich as any a princess might wear, but ancient and faded and threadbare. Her eyes were milky and white with cataracts, as opaque as a Hyuuga's. Genma didn't say anything, simply looked down at her, waiting.
"You are troubled," the woman said again. "Poor orphan. You've lost everyone, haven't you? You've lost so much."
It did nothing for Genma's mood. "What do you want, grandmother?" he asked tersely. His hands under his cloak reached for weapons.
"Come, child. Anzu-baachan won't hurt you. Sit down and take tea with her, and she'll tell you what you need to know, yes?"
The old woman sounded senile. She moved without grace or stealth. Her chakra was as weak as any civilian's. Harmless, Genma decided. He ducked into the shop's doorway and scanned a room cluttered with bundles of candles and wicks, and thick with the smell of paraffin. No one was inside but the old woman. No lingering stain of chakra from a genjutsu. No hidden enemies in the shadows. "I'm busy, grandmother. What do you want? A coin?"
"No no, only a moment of time. Sit with me, like a good child. I know you. I see into your heart. You are full of longing."
Genma didn't sit. He stayed where he was, leaning against the door frame, dug out a few ryou and pressed them into the woman's hand. "I'm just hungry and tired and ready to be on my way. Here, buy yourself some breakfast," he said, and started to turn away. The old woman reached for his arm, caught the edge of his cloak.
"Wait, shinobi-san."
Genma froze, fingers twitching as he palmed a blade into his left hand.
"I know what you are. You are like my son. He was a ninja, long ago. He died, also long ago," the old woman said. "I will not hurt you. But you must hear me. You are a killer, but you will give life to one who would have died."
Genma shuddered, muscles cord-tight, weapon concealed and poised. How had she known he was a ninja? He stared at her, seeing nothing but soft skin falling in pale wrinkles, that toothless mouth, those sightless eyes. There was nothing there. She was just an old woman in a faded dress.
"You are sick," the old woman continued.
Genma nearly laughed, tense as he was. "No trick to figure that out." He sniffled and coughed again, and wiped his nose against the back of one gloved hand.
"Your hands," the woman said. "Your heart. You are sick in the bones of your hands, and your heart aches. You fear you are alone in the world. You see the deaths of those you love and remember only bitterness. But you have already met your soulmate. Your true love waits for you at journey's end."
"That's enough," Genma snapped. He jerked away from the old woman, backing up into the doorway. Senbon bristled between his fingers.
"You are frightened, child. But your mother loved you when you were as toothless as I am now, and your soul though stained is still as pure as it was made."
"Crazy," Genma growled. "You're crazy. Don't follow me and I won't kill you." He stumbled out of the candle shop, away from the old woman and her insane babble. Too risky to leave her alive, maybe. But there was no clear reason to kill her. She'd guessed he was a ninja, but beyond that? She knew nothing, could tell an enemy nothing. The time he'd lose in killing her and concealing her body was certainly more than he could afford. And it would be hard to explain on a mission report, the death of an elderly civilian for what? Being spooky?
His throat hurt, his head ached. He fled from the candle shop, a shadow whispering through the awakening village. Sick in the hands? Sick? It was the old woman who was sick. Babbling on like some old tea-leaf reader about true loves and soulmates. Was it a lucky guess about his aching hands? Had she felt something when he pressed the coins into her palms? And calling him a killer, shinobi. A guess. A hunch based on the way he moved, or his scent. He'd given nothing away. He'd barely spoken to her. How had she known?
He didn't stop for breakfast. Too risky now. Even though the sun was shining brightly, he was chilled and shaking. Sick. The witch had got that much right. He thumbed a pair of aspirin from a metal tube into his mouth, swallowed the acid things dry, stiffened his shoulders, and hurried away from cursed Akatani, with it's tardy targets and eerie old women.
By the time the sun's rays were slanting long and orange along the ground, the kilometers he'd put between himself and Akatani had helped to lessen his dread about the old woman. A beggar looking for a few coins, doing parlor tricks with lucky guesses, he told himself. And his own fevered brain playing tricks on him had made her threat seem bigger than it was.
The road forked. The village of Shimabashi lay a few kilometers to the east. Konoha many, many more to the north. Genma slumped against a tree trunk, blew his raw nose, coughed until he choked, and sighed a deeply unhappy sigh. He was less than halfway home, wheezing, aching, fevered, and exhausted. Thinking about the long run through the night ahead of him made his stomach turn. It wasn't worth it. Three days of sleeping on the dead man's roof in the February rain had given him this cold. Another night spent in the open could only make it worse. If he stayed one night at an inn, with a hot bath and a hot meal, he'd be doing what Raidou always insisted he do, and treating the medic first. Any competent medic, he told himself, would have sent him to bed hours ago.
He gazed wearily down the east-turning fork of the road. Shimabashi was famous for the bridge that connected an island in the middle of the Tiger River with both banks. A graceful double arching bridge, lit with lanterns that reflected gaily on the water at night. The island itself was a bustling pleasure quarter, full of tea houses and restaurants, brothels and theatres. Genma could easily get a room for the night there, a hot bath and a good meal, and never be noticed. Turning to the east, his only thought was how grateful he was that the way was mostly downhill.
Continues in Incident at Shimabashi: Conclusion |
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