Sharp Ends [Flashback]

Numachi could make out the billows from their cookfires, as the first light of morning peaked through the pines; blue fingers of light grasping at brown pine needles. He sat back against a tree, legs crisscrossed with a black katana across his lap. Ishina was sewing wounds and spreading green healing chakra across the wounds of their injured band. Houji, their Chunin, had become the de facto leader after the death of their Jounin. He was a short, fat, and anxious man with neither the balls nor brains to lead the group or so Numachi had decided. Numachi watched Houji stare off into space as if searching for some answer there.

“They’ll be on us by midday.” Numachi said.

“I know,”

“What do you plan on doing about it?”

“The plan hasn’t changed: We’re returning the scroll to Kiri, whatever may come.”

“Fuck the scroll, and fuck you. We’ve lost five men since you took the lead, and I’m not following you a step further.”

Houji rose in half-light, “Lord Mizukage has put his faith in me by raising me to this rank. You dare question the Mizukage?”

“It’s not the Mizukage I question, it’s you. You’ve fucked us at every turn. Burn the scroll. I’m making my final stand here. Those cocksuckers will get nothing but ashes and our steel.”

Numachi stood, placing a hand on his sword as if to further goad Houji. Red eyes aflame in the morning light. Teal hair was plastered to his face by dry blood. Numachi watched as Houji slunk back into the shadow of a tree, slumped against the bark, and slid until his rump hit the dirt.

“Place your traps along the trail, and weave them along its edge, I mean to fight them here.” Numachi barked, “Get the wounded to higher ground. Those that can still fight, prepare your weapons. We’ll use the pines as cover, and funnel them into this grove, once here, at least we’ll have the element of surprise.”

“What’s the sense in moving the wounded?” Ishina asked.

“They’ll assume our entire squad moved along, given the trail you’ll leave, and we can attack their backside.”

She nodded in agreement.

“Well, what is everyone waiting for?”

Men roused, rearming themselves with pikes, spears, and swords. The scouts went out first, preparing traps and tags for the enemy's approach. Numachi sweated with the others as they dug tiger pits, then covered them up with pine needles, and thin branches. The injured staggered after Ishina, her small frame disappearing into the brush. Their labors lasted until midday when the first scout returned with an arrow in his shoulder.

“They’re ten minutes off, Numachi.”

Numachi nodded in response, a finger covering his mouth. Take your places in the trees, he mouthed to the men.

[WC: 464]

Numachi eased himself down on a perch, hunched over like a crazed monkey. He motioned to the nearest bowman when he heard the first tag detonate. Saw its black plume rise into the sky, and felt the heat of the explosion on his cheeks. They were coming. Good. A tree cracked in the distance, and the echo of its falling resonated in their ears. Close. So close. The first man that passed them was dressed in black. No flak jacket to prove his station or worth. Not even a hint of where they were from. Smart. In missions like this it was better to hide your affiliation, Numachi decided, or an all-out war could break out between the nations. He had an idea, but that was just. . .

The snap of twigs caught his attention, he turned his head to find a column of men marching out through the pines. Numachi held up a finger to steady his bowman and the others who had readied projectiles. When they crossed the threshold of the tiger pit, and the first wails erupted from those who had fallen in, he motioned them to release. Enemy footmen scattered under the rain of projectiles, Numachi saw a foe with an arrow in his eye babbling and hobbling around. A female shinobi with a senbon in her throat, and another with a back so full of arrows, Numachi could have mistaken him for a porcupine.

A voice came crisp and clear, ringing over the chaos. A tall man among the enemy ranks directed his men’s attention to the trees. The enemy reformed themselves for a counterattack. Numachi leaped from his perch, Wakizashi, and Katana in his hands. Steel sang as he landed among them, blades deflecting spear thrusts, answering enemy blade arcs with ripostes, and shearing limbs as he ran through the host. All around him lay the dying and dead: mouth-gaped corpses already going pale, writhing screamers–their shouts sounding gratted against the song of blades.

Numachi’s face was a smear of gore as he cut a path to the enemy’s Captain. Wild red eyes blazing against the midday light, white teeth specked with blood. Block, parry, dash, riposte. Encircled by enemies, Numachi made the fight seem as graceful as a dance. Through a gap in the bodies, his target drifted further from vision as more crowded around to slow his advance. A shout came from above in the tree line. A portly figure lept from cover, his hands forming seals as he descended. Ringlets of bubbling green liquid splashed all around Numachi, and the horrid screams of his opponents rose in symphony as the acid melted armor to flesh, and skin to bone.

Before advancing, Numachi stopped, awkwardly looking back at Houji. Head lowered as his mouth tightened.

“Thanks,” Numachi said.

The fat Chuunin nodded.

[WC: 471. TWC: 935]

He watched their leader drift off into the haze of underbrush, his cohorts' silhouettes fading into the distance. Numachi flicked the blood off his blade and sheathed it. He coughed against the smell of cooked pork. He would never forget that smell for as long as he lived, and it churned his stomach. No more pork. Red eyes looked upon the acid-eaten corpses in various states of decay at his feet.

“Does it always smell like that?”

“Yeah. They’re headed in the direction of–” Houji said.

“I know. Rouse the men or all left that can still fight. I’m going after them.”

“Can you reach them before?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wherever they’re from, that Man knows a hell of a lot more about battle than us.”

Numachi nodded in agreement, “I wouldn’t have pulled out. I would have fought to the last man, even if the last man was me.”

“Yeah, I know, Numachi. That’s why you don’t have a–”

“We don’t have the luxury of discussing fucking Shogi tactics, I’m a soldier, and that’s all.”

“They retreat.”

“And we hunt them down.”

“There’s only six of them alive, and by my count, there’s only four or five of us willing or able left to fight,” Houji said.

“Enough talking, for now, I’m marching on them.”

They trailed the enemy for an hour before they came upon them. Through the flats of Kirigakure, where the rivers bend around bambooed thatched roofs of villages, and old men sitting on porches with their women weaving rugs. Young boys run past with cane poles and smiles, glances and whispers of “Shinobi” on their lips. They walked until the sun dipped on the horizon until red streaks smeared the sky. Until their feet ached and all they wanted was their dried rations and a helping of jerky.

When they finally came upon the tall silvered-haired man, who was nestled on the crest of a treeless knoll. They found the tall man holding a kunai to Ishina’s throat. The others in the unknown band stood around, weapons and scrolls were drawn–the wounded(mist ninjas), who Numachi had left in Ishina’s care, had all been slain; laying in pools of their own blood. Numachi’s eyes narrowed into red slits, hand on sword, but before he could move, Houji put a hand on his shoulder.

“Now, I think, it’s my turn. I’ll see what I can do.”

“The scroll.” The tall man said, digging his kunai deeper into her throat.

“You’ll let her go, then? If that’s what you want,” Houji reached into his tool pouch,

“I told you to fucking burn it,” Numachi said.

“Oh, you’re a ferocious one, huh? What a shame, the way you fought, I might have mistaken you for a… You’re something else, huh, boy? Carved up my boys like a cake. What I would give for a Genin like you, it’s a damn shame. . .” The tall man said,

“Eat shit.” Numachi spat,

“Don’t give him the scroll,” Ishina quivered,

Portly Houji stared down at the scroll in his hand. The Mist sigil engraved into the wax. Houji’s eyes closed. . .

“He’ll kill me, scroll or not, he has already–”

Blood gushed from her mouth, trickling down the length of her neck, and dripping from the ends of her white hair.

“Well, the bitch was right at least.” The tall man said with a smirk.

Scarlett eyes rolled white. Numachi’s face contorted into a giant terrible snarl, showing all his white teeth. His steels were unsheathed in an instant, he dodged around a fireball that left his comrades in cinders. And upward slash split a trumpet of water that surged at him. With an offhand single stroke, he opened an opponent from balls to clavicles. A spray of blood erupted from the foe’s chest as he moved on to the next. Numachi shoved his wakizashi under another’s chin, and the blade’s tip peaked out of the top of skull. His free arm got caught in the chain of a kusarigama. He pulled on the chain, dragging his opponent within striking range, and removed his head with a single slash.

A kunai stabbed into his right forearm, he turned, reeling from the injury. Dashed within range of the thrower, and ran him through with a katana. He let the fool fall with the sword stuck inside, and picked up the kusarigama in its place. He opened another’s throat with a backstroke. Numachi stood panting, streaks of blood and sweat beading down his skin. He looked to the fallen enemies, to his dead comrades, and to the last man standing on the other side. Tall, sleek, handsome, and soon dead, Numachi decided. Around his wrist, he wrapped a length of chain, letting the sickle hang limply at his leg. The man was slow to approach as if he had something to say, some reason or stratagem he wanted to… Numachi raised the chain, spinning it overhead, causing the sickle to spin atop his axis like a helicopter blade.

“There are more opportunities for you,” The tall man inched closer.

Numachi let go of the length of the chain wrapped around his wrist, extending the range of his kama strike to encompass the man. Links rattled, as the scream of the kama sounded overhead. The tall man’s eyes opened in shock, he was saying something low and quiet, that Numachi couldn’t quite make out.

“What?” Numachi asked.

The top layer of the tall man’s scalp, cranium, and brain slid off like a plate on a tilted table. All the tension and angst build up in Numachi was released in a single long exhale. He was on his knees now, but he couldn’t recall how he got there. Blood was splattered on the top of his palms. He dropped the kusarigama, and looked up to see the final rays of sunlight disappear. He shook off exhaustion with a groan, attempting to stand, but a deep burning pain erupted in his knees when he tried. He collapsed, lying prone on his back, eyes watching the twinkle of night stars and a gibbous moon overhead. Still alive, he told himself. Still alive. He heard a rustle in the grass, but couldn’t move to meet the new threat.

“Do it!” he barked, “I’m over here. Kill me.”

The rustling came on, slowly at first, and then the rustling was on him. An Anbu mask in the dark with the sigil of the mist across its forehead.

“Well done, young one.” A voice answered, “Still too soon to meet your end, I think.”

[WC: 1095, TWC: 2030]

[End Topic]

Claims:

Chakra Infusion 2k Words

20 Stat points to be added to Numachi Kinoko's Speed.