The Bomb Maker [M]

[Mamushi]

SPOILER: Click to show

{C Rank Mission}
Diabolical Inept Villian
Rank: C
Description: Some anarchist peasant fool from a farming village in central Hi no Kuni has assembled an arsenal of fertilizer bombs in his campaign to destroy all the ninja villages. Find this bomber-farmer and convince him the error of his ways.
Restrictions: No limitation
Rewards: 50 EXP, 1000 RYO

        The forest sprawled green and wild as far as Mamushi's eyes could see. She sped through the trees, sun beating down from above. The deep wood was singing. Baby hawks chirped in the gnarled boughs of a colossal oak. Somewhere deeper in the trees, monkeys were hooting and howling. A boa hissed at her as she passed, bright lime green and coiled about a thick branch. The undergrowth was painted in mottled swaths of green and brown.

        Soon the forests would level out into terraced hills and winding streams. A vast river cut southeast through the center of Hi no Kuni, fed from headwaters in the vast mountain ranges in the north and the west. Tributaries joined it from all over, and nestled between all of them were hundreds of farming and fishing villages and towns. They humped the hills and dotted the roads, clumps of brick and timber homes and stores and mud huts, some surrounded by wooden walls, some stone, some brick. A few towns had buildings wrought of steel and stone and plaster, but these were the larger towns, where the streets were paved and electrical wiring hung above the roads.

        Sakegawa sat astride a calm river choked with reeds and sandbars. Beyond it's meager brick walls, spreading southward from the town, were leagues and leagues of farm land, humped with rice paddies and orchards. She leaped down from the trees some ways away from the village and walked the rest of the way on foot, face shadowed beneath a straw conical hat. The gate into Sakegawa was closed and guarded by two men-at-arms who were armored in leather, spears in one hand, shields in the other. They perked up when they saw Mamushi approaching.

        "Halt!" The big one on the left shouted as he barred her path. His face bore old scars and pockmarks, and he stank. "What is your business in Sakegawa?"

        "Just a traveler passing through," Mamushi replied. "Goin' down to Takayama for the races."

        "The town is on lockdown. No one in, no one out. You'll have to go around. There's a detour through the forest." He stepped forward, trying to intimidate her with his size and breadth.

        Mamushi tilted back her hat and let her headband show. The swirled leaf of Konoha was etched into the steal band.

        His eyes widened. "Ahh, Shinobi-san. my apologies. The headsman has been awaiting your arrival."

        "Mention my arrival to no one," Mamushi hissed, barely holding in her giggle when he paled. "It'll not do to have my quarry know I'm after him." The fool might get anxious, set off a bomb. She didn't care if a bunch of villagers died, but it would look bad on her mission record.

        "Hidechi-sama gave strict  orders to be alerted whenever you arrived," the burly guard argued. He turned, opened his mouth to shout at his fellow lounging against the wall; Mamushi jabbed him in the throat and disappeared in a swirl of wind and leaves, shunshining beyond him.

        The second guard started to turn towards her - she jumped, kneed him in the face, and he crumpled to the ground.

        "Tell no one," she said, raising her voice above their groans, "or I'll have to come find you. Agreed?"

        "Agreed," the first guard wheezed. "We won't-" he stopped, coughed, "we won't tell anyone."

        "Promise me."

        "I promise," he managed. "Won't tell a soul. Matter fact, who am I even talking to?" He looked away from her, hand pressed to his throat. His comrade had passed out, so she kicked him for good measure.

        And then she leaped the wall and vanished into the town bustling town.

[Mamushi]

        The streets of Sakegawa were nearly deserted, save for the occasional patrolling pair of men-at-arms. Mamushi kept to the roof tops, flitting silently from building to building.

        The bomb maker she hunted was supposedly a farmer, but Mamushi couldn't knock the feeling that something sinister was afoot. Being the sinister sort herself, she had a nose for such things. This "Hidechi-sama" bore investigating. It wasn't the norm for inept men to find themselves as town leaders, and if he hadn't found this bozo by now, he was a few rungs below inept. Southern Hi no Kuni was half wild, and banditry was a constant threat to burgeoning villages and bustling towns alike. And sometimes, those bandits were former ninja - half-trained throwaways, truth be told. Konoha kept its eyes to issues far greater than common outlaws and couldn't be bothered to hunt down every roving band of robbers and rapers - headsmen and mayors had to defend their people themselves, most of the time. Obligation tended to weed out the lesser men from the position.

        Due to the fact that the bomber wasn't swinging from a gallows in the town square, she was beginning to suspect Hidechi of foul play. So she ghosted across buildings towards the steel structure that stood tall and stout in the center of town. The sun glared off the tinted windows, swaths of bright, searing orange. The building was four stories stall, perhaps five, each face dominated by grey-tinted windows. She dived down into an alley near the mini-skyscraper, pulled her hood over her hat and zipped it closed. There was an academy technique perfect for this; she pushed chakra into her garments and was rendered nearly invisible. Cloaked, she sprinted to the building and ran up its sheer sides all the way to the roof. Leaders always holed up in the tallest building, and usually on the top floor.

        The top floor, she saw when she reached it, turned out to be vast lavishly furnished room and a heavily guarded hallway. And there was Hidechi, sitting on a black velvet couch in his "office", a lissome dark-haired woman bouncing up and down in his lap. Mamushi climbed passed the room up to the roof. She'd seen a stairway in his office, that meant -

        A door on the roof. It was locked, but every shinobi worth their salt knew how to pick a lock. Within seconds she was sneaking her way down the stairwell and into the office. She heard the woman moaning, her tone flat. Hidechi didn't seem to care, rutting up into her with abandon, naked flesh glistening with sweat.

        Mamushi waiting until she was standing right in front of him before she revealed herself. She canceled the jutsu on her cloak, leering down at him from over the woman's shoulder. He glanced at her, kept fucking, glanced back, and loosed a echoing shrill. It rang for less than a heartbeat before her hand closed over his neck, cutting his shriek short.

        "Hello, Hidechi-san."

        Hips rolling, the whore turned in his lap and gazed blankly at Mamushi. "Long arms," she mumbled with a loopy smile. She was young, freckled, and drugged out of her mind. Probably opiates, if the smell was anything to go by. "And wicked eyes." Her head lolled, black hair wild. "Oh, yeah, Hidechi, ohhhh. Yes. Yes."

        Mamushi giggled at her, a tinkling sound like ringing bells. The girl, naked and sweating, rolled off the headsmen, curled up beside him, and drifted off into a deep slumber. A bright green-gold dragon tattoo curled around her left breast and flowed down to the inside of her right thigh. Mamushi was reminded of her own tattoos, twin snakes twining down either arm.

        She scowled at the struggled Hidechi, squeezing his throat tighter and tighter until his eyes looked like they were about to pop. His meaty fingers closed over her forearm, but try as he might, he couldn't pry her loose. Slowly the blood drained from his face and his skin began to turn blue. His struggles weakened, turned feeble. When his eyes started to flutter and his eyes rolled, she let him loose. His first breath was long and ragged, naked chest heaving.

        Mamushi palmed a kunai. "Now let's talk about this bomb maker."

[Mamushi]

        Mamushi waited while Hidechi gathered himself enough to speak. She took the time to look over the room. He had an authentic Kumagashi painting hanging on one of the faces of the six pillars that dominated the center of the room, an Otori on another. A section of the was depressed,with a short stair cutting down into the space; she saw a television set peaking over the edge of the floor, speakers, a lava lamp. Her eyes roved. There were statuettes on a table beneath the wall, vine-like plants in gilded braziers hanging in above. The desk on the far end of the room was carved of heavy oak, naked women and leaping fish etched into the wood. The countryside under Sakegawa's protection sprawled beyond the window, golden fields and rice paddies dappling the plains.

        When she turned back to Hidechi, he was staring at her, hate burning in his eyes. "Shinobi-san," he began, voice hard, "I do not know what I have done to warrant this aggression. Allow me to make amends."

        It was the stalest apology Mamushi had ever heard. Her fingers twitched to choke him again out of pure annoyance, but she stayed her hand, instead letting it morph into a hissing snake. The look in his eyes changed then, like she knew it would. He gulped, jowls jiggling, leaning back into the couch as if to escape her.

        She reached out, caressed his face with her slithering appendage. "Why haven't you caught this "bomber"? You have the men. A town of this size can support a decent militia."

        'Y-y-you have seen the s-st-streets. They a-are empty..." he trailed off as the snake began to coil slowly about his arms and chest.

        "Keep going. I assume you were about to tell me why?" Mamushi was enjoying this.

        "Brigands," he blurted. "Months back. Th-th-they came through, killed my men. Over a third. And my predecessor too." He stopped, shuddering as scales glided over his face. "An-an-an-and I sent men after them! Thirty horsemen. Then my spies came to me with whisperings." He seemed to gain confidence as he weaved his tale. "One of the formers was some sort of chemist, they said, and he'd been collecting feces for bombs."

        "To blow up Konoha."

        He hesitated, and the snake wound around him tightened. "Certainly the town," he said in a rush. 

        "The mission docket says he means to blow up Konoha."

        "I did not request the mission! It wasn't me!"

        "Then who?"

        "I did," a voice rang out from the door. Mamushi frowned; that door was supposed to be locked.

        The voice belonged to a woman. Her hair was pale blond and wavy, her eyes honey brown. She was tall and sharp-featured, clad in a wine colored business suit complete with heels that clicked loudly as she stalked closer. Mamushi shifted her summation of Sakegawa. Seems HIdechi was indeed inept - it was his secretary who ran the town. 

        "When the horsemen did not return within a week I suspected that they had deserted. With a weak militia, a weak ruler, and an empty treasury, the town was doomed. Luckily for us the deserters continued south."

        Mamushi considered that it was very likely her other mission, in southern Hi no Kuni, was to deal with this men.

        "Right around that time," the woman began anew, closer now, "we began to receive reports of a crazed farmer who had swore to avenge the destruction of his home. Vengeance on the vile Konoha-nin, were his words. I suspected the bandits might make use of his explosives, if his threats had any truth to them." She paused, shoved the slumbering girl against Hidechi, and settled against the cushions."He set off a bomb in the forest," she continued, "but nothing was hurt save a few trees. I had him tracked from there." She crossed her legs, folded her arms. "He was found dead in his homestead just last night, wife, children, even his dog. Their was evidence that he had created hundreds of bombs, but we found none. I had already sent off for a ninja at that point, primarily for precautionary measures, and it seems like I was right to do so. The situation is possibly more dire, now, and the paltry men we have can't handle the problem alone."


        Mamushi smiled her wide, savage smile, and the woman smiled back. "And your name..."

        "Mai, if it please you, kuniochi-san. Muto Mai."

        Mamushi's snake released Hidechi, who immediately pushed to his feet and scuttled away, tripping to the floor. "Please to meet you Mai-san. I am called Mamushi."

[Mamushi]

        Mai took Mamushi down to her office for tea and a light snack and to discuss strategy. An hour later and the murderous genin was standing before a small company of fifteen men, clad in bulky padded clothes beneath fine, lightweight lamellar armor - a captain's armor, Mai had said, woven from iron, steel, and leather scales, paired with a harikake kabuto crested with a golden trident, the middle prong a golden dragon rearing, and two curled horns of sculpted ivory. She had been given the captain's katana as well, and though she had yet to learn any actual kenjutsu, the academy style and a natural affinity afforded her well enough with the weapon in hand. Her ninjato rested on the opposite hip, and her kris was sheathed up her sleeve. 

         All in all, she looked a proper samurai. Her men? Not so much. They were more rabble than warrior.

        The unfortunate guard from the gate was the most impressive looking of the soldiers, but the rangy, wiry man with the scar on his cheek and the beak-nose seemed the most dangerous. The majority carried with them an airs of extreme mediocrity, but looks, she supposed, could be deceiving. A few of them might prove capable, when the time for killing came. A few of the bowmen seemed to have some wits about them, by the sharp gleam of their eyes.

        The last of them were true fodder; three were young and green, big farmboys with spears and tall shields, the fourth an obvious coward, by his frightened quivering and the smell of piss that hung about him like a cloak. Mamushi would probably kill him herself before something else did. With her kriss, she was thinking, so his death would be properly painful. 

        Two tan mares had been brushed, bridled; saddled, and reined; with her riding as the company's captain, she would march them to the dead farmers abode and scout the forest from there. She was a decent enough tracker with her bloodline, and where she might have trouble hunting skilled ninja, tracking a bunch of bandits would most likely be much simpler. They didn't know half the tricks that shinobi did.

        "You two," she said, gesturing to the two she had picked out, "what are your names." She donned the snarling, blood-red soment, its nose long and sharp, its teeth carved to sharp points inside a grinning mouth.

        "Watanabo Ichigari," the burly one said, his thick neck bruised from where she had jabbed him. He had a heavy nodachi strapped to his back, sheathed in slate-blue sharksin, and a wicked flail coiled at his waist. He was closer to seven feet than six, and three hundred pounds easy, thick with muscle and flesh all over. 

        "Shintaro," the scarred one intoned. He offered no surname, and carried both a katana and a wakizashi. His scaled armor was worn and rusted in places, but offered more protection than the padded leather the rest wore.

        When she spoke, her voice was a harsh hiss, like her grandfather's used to be. "Mount up, Shintaro. Ichigari, you will lead the footmen."

        If Ichigari felt that he should be the one to ride, he kept his feelings to himself. He bowed low and turned to shout at the men to ready up. Already armed and armored, the men formed up quickly enough, arranging themselves in three lines, spear tips glinting beneath the sun. 

        Clad in her fine armor, somen etched with a visage straight from the depths of hell, slight form bulked by her raiment, Mamushi looked a true fright. She spurred her horse to a walk, and the tan mare whinnied. "Lead the way, Shintaro."

        They exited the town through the south gate, the wide, rutted road rolling through the terraced hills and wheat farms, brume swirling thin and wispy in the sky above.
                                        

                        

[Frozen]

A white horse trotted up to the entrance of Sakegawa accompanied by Elsa who walked beside it. She had dismounted to check on a pair of men who had seemed dead from a distance but now seemed to be merely knocked out. She might have thought they had simply been sleeping on the job, but the look of terror on their faces told her otherwise. What could have possibly happened here? she thought as she mounted the horse and continued into the town.

Today she was dressed in a green tunic and a black cloak. For once she was trying to hide her regal looks since she knew she was venturing in to the shady regions of the fire country. She was on her own little mission to establish trade deals and was making her way through the region to gauge the demand for ice-based goods. Judging by how war torn the past 100 miles had looked, Elsa figured that these people would at least have a need for cheap and effective weaponry.

“Hello there,” she would say as she was approached by a pair of guards, “I am looking for Hedechi. I have been in correspondence with him and we agreed to meet today to discuss a trade agreement.” Elsa handed the men one of her letters for confirmation, then the guards pointed to an elegant building to the north. Elsa nodded in thanks then sped off towards her destination. The better I get out of this place, the better.

Upon arriving (after you all left), Elsa found a scene so wretched that she immediately deleted it from her memory banks. She threw up in disgust and rode out of the town as quickly as possible. What was wrong with people in this part of the world? Well she now knew that she would probably never be doing business here. She decided to head south to visit her last town before heading back to the snow country.

Along the way, she saw quite a number of people travelling in a group and decided to approach them from behind. Most if not all of them were heavily armored so she doubted they would be threatened by her presence.

“Hello there! Do you mind if I travel with your party until we hit the next town? I just stopped by Sakegawa and everyone there looked so armed and tense. I don’t think it’s wise for me to travel alone if I can help it.” She was so glad that she was wearing a mud covered cloak. There's no way she would feel safe approaching such a shady group of people dressed as a princess. 


Edit: Mamushi

[☆ F ☆]

Mamushi: 40 EXP

Frozen: 10 EXP