The Red-Eyed Corpse

In the middle of dusk, Saturn appeared at the entrance of the grand building that housed the Raikage's chambers, atop the highest peak in Kumogakure. It had been a little less than a year since he had last stepped into the office, that time alongside his brother in arms Jun Shibasaki. Although the fortuneteller had not spoken to the Raikage directly during his travels, a messenger raven had once visited him, creeping in through the iron bars of the cheap rental concrete room he had rented in the Land of Hotsprings. The black raven which Saturn recognized from the same Kumon birdhouses he had once helped to clean, had a singular and strange message: "Saturn, you have my permission to kidnap people at the hotsprings"


The words perplexed Saturn, and kept him up at night. The message was clearly from The Raikage, but the fortuneteller wondered what it meant. He wondered if this was a simple suggestion meant to enable his mischief, or a stern instruction that he was required to follow to compensate for his long absence. Perhaps it had just been for the Raikage's amusement, but that was not a bet that the Metal Hand of Kumogakure could place his money on. After all, he knew from experience that getting it wrong meant severe reprehension.  

Saturn had just stepped out of Jashin's Temple, and made up his mind to head back home, when a strange figure and two of his shadow clones blocked his line of sight to the Sun. It happened in a flash. His next memory was standing over the body, the blades of his labrys bloodied red. 

"Is it still kidnapping if he's dead?"


A terrified Mimas had asked him, the octopus seemed like it took some damage from the fight.

"What's that? You're right... You did good, buddy."


Saturn had responded, grinning down at the pale face of the corpse as he spoke to his familiar. The dead man's red eyes stayed open, the way they were when they died. There was only one problem: the corpse's intestines hung out from its stomach, it moved like an uncoiling snake. The two worked together to wrap the corpse with white bandages, and once Saturn finally reached home he had sealed the corpse in a specialized scroll.

The scroll hung behind Saturn's back as he approached the door leading to the Raikage's Chambers, the metal claws on his shoes scraping behind him. Saturn wore Sichelmond, his augmented Kisatsutai Uniform. Around this uniform was the morphed Mimas, taking the shape of a black hooded robe that covered its owner from head to toe. The blob was normally shy around strangers, but it was terrified of the Raikage.

The air was thick, not with incense or wood smoke, but with power. Saturn had heard whispers of an incident that had happened with the Raikage while the fortuneteller was away. A man, supposedly the Kage of another village, had visited Kumogakure. The two Kages were at the Drunken Kage bar when something the foreigner said or did had upset the Raikage, who ripped his throat out with his bare hands and left him to die.
 
Saturn gulped, and exhaled, pushing the door open without waiting for permission.

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WC: 538