“So… How does this work, will you just stand by me until my last croak? That’s what you call “decency”?” the woman spoke.
Her attitude annoyed Kouta, this expression just furthered that impression. He was wasting time with a patient that no medical ninja would take. He healed her enough to give her time maybe until the morning and wasted a whole bunch of his chakra in return, greatly weakening himself in the process. If she really was a trap flung by the Syndicate his way she offered no effort to hide it. Actually she was a bit too bitchy to be a trap, then again, Kouta hasn’t met many human traps.
“I’ve diagnosed you, I’ve healed you… As best as it is possible given the circumstances. What else do you want?” Kouta grunted out, he was tired, weakened and annoyed. Not his best hour to speak to a person who would’ve died at any point normally, now given more time to waste on… Whatever brought her to this condition.
“Well, first, maybe explain what’s wrong with me? I’ve seen many medical ninja but none of them bothered. All of them just sung doomsday sonatas and tossed around empty warnings and threats…” the woman asked.
“Your body is incinerated from inside. Your organs and insides, even blood are boiled to a sludgy mush that stuck together into one giant clump. The best comparison is “ your gut looks like you drank a bottle of pure magma. You’d have died at any moment if I didn’t heal you, now only my chakra sustains you. You maybe have till morning, honestly, given the injuries at hand… I’m surprised you’re even alive, you barely had a working cell in your organism” Kouta replied brushing his hair with his own hand and wiping the sweat off his forehead. The young man felt his body flaring up with a small fever and saw his vision blurring. He must’ve wasted more chakra than he planned, he was used healing Mana, sometimes the others, maybe he missed some chakra nodes that were misplaced, after all, all bodies were unique…
“Holy shit… You make it sound much gloomier than the other whitecoats, you’ve got a knack for that, kid. Someday you’re gonna make a pretty and sick gal cry real bad, nice job” the woman pressed her forehead against her ruined and badly done fingernails. As the rain covered her hair and face and washed some of the filth on her away, Kouta thought that she may have been an attractive woman once, maybe even that same beauty placed bread and butter on her table?
“Well… My first instinct was to hold back but… I know what those injuries are from, kind of… I suspect at least, having in mind how the doctors “warned” and “threatened” you. I guess ultimately I am as much of a simpleton brawler like my father, just like I am a medical ninja… My medical discretion asks to be discrete, my warrior side tells me to say it how it is” Kouta replied. He wanted to spend some more time with the woman, at least until her final hours but now he prolonged the time she had and so prolonged the time decency made him stick around her.
The woman smiled revealing a mouth of ruined yellow teeth, something the young medical ninja hadn’t noticed before.
“Well, something I’ve come to learn is that it’s easy to choose a side, an identity, when you suck at everything else, it is when both things stick to you, when both things are part of your identity and define you together that the really tough choices have to be made…” she said.
“I have a friend who’s struggling with similar issues. Maybe you’ve found a solution to that problem? It’s tough to tell your real age, I suspect you look far worse than you actually are, no offense, one thing for certain is that you have more experience” Kouta asked wondering if he could obtain some of this woman’s wisdom in the matter before she passed away. She just smiled once again with that terrible keyboard of rotten teeth and shook her head.
“Not unless you can help me find the answer until dawn…” she uttered.
“I wish I could…” Kouta said, “Would that be the only matter left unresolved in your life? That very same girl is also very afraid of ghosts and spirits so I’d like to not spawn another one…” he tried to joke but realized that it may have come off as really rude. Then again, when one’s imminent death was concerned morality and lines that weren’t supposed to be crossed blurred greatly. When a person was about to kill you it was OK to kill that person, a person had no obligation to help another one until that another one is in mortal peril. Death redefined everything.
“Oh no… There is one regret I wish I could have resolved but no sane doctor would advise me…” the woman spoke longingly.
“Oh?” Kouta couldn’t decide how to ask her to elaborate so he just uttered it, seeing how the woman fell silent, maybe wondering how he’d react and if he’d help her last request.
“You know I wasn’t always the ruined lady passed out in the puddle. As a brat I was curious and ambitious, my parents and grandparents kept telling me I’d rise high, that I’d be a businesswoman or maybe a great musician or at least someone of the first generation of the village’s great ninja. I guess for kids curiosity, ambition and high hopes are all that matters. All curious kids are supposed to go high, right?” the woman asked, she fell silent so she must’ve expected a reply.
“I guess…” Kouta answered, for a moment he thought about his own childhood, not having been an aggressive kid, not having been the curious or overly ambitious one. He just wanted father and mother to stop fighting, he just wanted to make both of them happy but that was until he realized that both of his parents wanted him to be different things. Satisfying them both was impossible, choices had to be made…
“So then when I grew, my curiosity didn’t fade, I had to go everywhere, do everything. That’s when it became a problem. My parents now hated how I spent all of my time in various training missions and…”
“You were a ninja?” Kouta asked, there was little wonder in the question, had she not been she’d have never survived total incineration of her innards into a large clot of puss and gore.
“Sure, at some point. Then, as all people, I’ve had to make choices. Curiosity isn’t nearly as precious for teens and young adults as it is for children. People expect curiosity to die and be replaced by devotion at some point, even sacrifice… Well it didn’t, not for me, nevertheless, I had to make choices, I didn’t choose becoming a ninja, I became a musician instead. All because of the ambition, the high hopes of rising high… That same curiosity lead me to becoming the passed out lady in the puddle. I rose high initially, I was the kind of person Notasa and Hipler are like now” the woman said.
“So what happened?” Kouta wondered.
“Fame… Fame and a lot of jackbang” the woman lowered her head.
“Damn…” Kouta whispered to himself. Jackbang was a similar drug to the hat’ash of the Wind Country but much more aggressive, much more toxic. Where the hat’ash wasn’t technically addictive, just the sensations it gave were pleasant enough to seek some more, similarly to how food that tasted good begged to be eaten again, jackbang was highly addictive and ultimately lethal in most cases. When ingested it burnt up and blew up like firecrackers, it filled one’s mouth with chemicals that forced the organism to secrete pleasure hormones while their body was being blown up and burnt from inside. It also was addictive to the degree that addicts licked off the foam that the substance exploded into once it escaped the user’s mouth. Sometimes the addict’s body became so ruined that their entire bone and flesh structure became as flammable as the substance they took, then the person was set on flames from within and spontaneously burnt up to a crisp. Kouta suspected that drugs were involved, maybe jackbang, maybe chillpill, hat’ash would’ve been rare in these places but obtainable by a starlet which this woman once claimed to be…
“You know… All I wish is to nib on one more cracker of actual pure hat’ash before I go… The brownie that started it all… My downfall to the bottom of the shaft” the woman whimpered after a pause of silence.
“Absolutely not. It’s a relaxation drug but it’s a drug nonetheless, it may not harm a normal person much but it might kill you” Kouta objected, his professional judgment could barely even contradict that idea.
“I’m already dead…” the woman spoke longingly for the life she once had.
“From how you’ve lead the conversation to this point I assume there’s a specific person you wish to nab it from? This was all your plan, to ask this of me all along?” Kouta suspected.
“My manager, who then became my dealer once I didn’t make like I used to, who then started croaking with the Syndicate once he made more than I used to, but we’ve no hopes of getting to his nest, not with all the other Syndicate dogs barking around him” she sadly exclaimed.
Suddenly Kouta realized what Mana would have done in that situation. Usually the girl made the impression of a strict and by the book kind of person but actually she only followed rules when they were valid and acceptable from her own prism. No… Mana had the potential to become the world’s greatest nukenin based on how little she thought of rules. At this point, when a dying person asked for a last smoky cracker from a dealer that may have had a hand in ruining her life… There was only one answer to give her. All she wanted was a little pleasure before her inevitable death, pleasure of tasting something pure, pleasure of seeing the empire of the men that supplied the substance that ruined her life burn down to ashes. Mana would’ve rolled the joint out of the largest bill of money the sucker had herself… Kouta admired Mana greatly and wanted to be more like her, he wanted to be with her, he loved her…
“We’ve got time, if anything else…” he suggested with a hopeful tone and a smirk.
*****
Mana and Meiko wandered the streets. They had little if any clue about where they could’ve found anything solid. They had a suspect, they had a modus operandi but they couldn’t pinpoint the person, their location or where their sick and twisted murders would occur again. Mana slapped her forehead and grunted angrily. The leather jacket and skirt she wore may have protected her from rain rather competently but the silk shirt she wore below that was getting soaked and the rain was literally dripping off her long hair wrapping around her skin and under her clothes. Her hopelessness sickened the magician.
“No one’s knocking me out now…” she uttered. “No one’s in my way, no one to struggle fighting without killing them, no friend standing in my way freezing me to inaction… And yet still I can’t save anyone” she complained.
Meiko looked down and then up into the pouring sky, she did not avoid or even try to avoid Mana’s curious glares. The blacksmith was attempting to find something, she saw her friend tormenting herself over something she didn’t even understand and so the redhead continued to order herself to figure it out for her friend. Not because the matter pleased or was important to Meiko but because it was important enough for Mana to care. All sadness and depressing tears disappeared or got stuck somewhere in their forming steps as Mana became taken over by surprise and gratitude for her friend, just for a brief moment, not long enough for Meiko to notice but long enough for Mana to realize how fond she’d grown of the blacksmith. She was certainly not wrong to plan this trip, Meiko would hold the legendary artifact in her hands if it was the last thing Mana would do…
“The villagers said that the police force only functions as a façade and that the Syndicate thugs are the only “investigators” with real knowledge… You’d normally speak to the police force to get some details, right? Why don’t we substitute one for the other?” Meiko asked something that sounded so foolish when she said it but the more Mana thought about it the more genius it sounded. When one met the blacksmith a common first impression would’ve been that she’s primitive and dumb just because she was a bit awkward, noisy and quirky but the truth couldn’t have been farther away. Meiko was just as smart as she needed to be, she just thought differently.
“That’s… Actually pure genius, I am surprised…” Mana blinked a couple of times in rapid succession staring at Meiko in surprise, just like with the blacksmith’s knowledge of music, the redhead surprised Mana by how smart she sometimes could’ve been.
“Yeah but… We won’t be able to just waltz in and talk to them, I mean those guys probably know us and hate us, right?” Meiko thought for a moment.
“Are you or are you not a ninja?” Mana smiled proudly. How could’ve her friend who just suggested such an amazing idea now not realized how easy the solution was.
“Right… Transformation technique…” Meiko thought scratching the side of her head. “I wouldn’t bet on that though, I mean you can’t even use that, can you?”
“Hmph… If only I had my chakra control back we could use Combination Transformation Jutsu, I’d use my skill with ninjutsu and you’d supply the chakra and the idea…” Mana thought scratching her chin. Strange almost comical ideas of hiding under the same coat began dawning in her mind, even someone as optimistic and whimsical as Mana saw how silly these thoughts were and swatted them aside.
“How much do you like being tied up?” Meiko smiled.
“Have you even seen my show?” Mana smiled back as the two finally settled on an idea. There was no way that Meiko could’ve asked the right questions as her strangely working mind focused on completely other things entirely so Mana had to be there but she couldn’t use the Transformation Technique, also wiring Meiko with a microphone would’ve been too risky and expensive, also no one even brought along the hi-tech pieces of the ninja kit since they were looking at a sandy trip along the vastness of the Wind Country deserts…
Finally a plan was made, the two would find out the truth and catch the person responsible for this gruesome murder until the new day dawned…
*****
“Hey wait… I forgot your face, you’ll be rich, I tell ya” a mobster laughed straight into Shimo’s face once the youth made his way into the hall. The schedule hanging in the hall suggested that Notasa’s concert was about to start and the curtain was still closed, it was a lovely red suede cloth with a white star embroidered on it with a nice gold colored “Notasa” signature hanging on top of the star. This lady was much fancier than Mana’s show, maybe if the magician charged more she’d also be much more pompous, just like this lady…
“Whachu talkin’ bout, it’s Jonessy, from the neighborhood!” another drunk mobster wiped his nose. These two must’ve already had quite the night since the fat and small one who had just spoken was already quite blushed from alcohol’s daze and had lost his fancy striped jacket somewhere, his white shirt was torn and unbuttoned halfway letting his fat chest and belly slip more and more out and siege the rest of his buttons with pressure they slowly relented to.
“Yeah, ye goomba, how could you not know me, Jonessy, from the neighborhood!?” Shimo yelled out playing his act out and slapping the tall slim one in the back of his head making his top hat slip off and fall to the ground. The slim one didn’t even bothered picking him up, he just laughed out and blushed.
“Sorry, I drank too much to tell guys from the neighborhood apart… What neighborhood are ya from though?” he asked.
“What difference does it make, the bastard married Ariadne Jetson, the fuckin’ actress! For fuck’s sake Petey, you’re embarrassing the neighborhood! He’s from the neighborhood I’m telling you…” the fat one once again outright shouted into his friend’s face and settled down locking his fingers together and slipping into a lovely alcoholic’s slumber.
“Did you really marry Ariadne Jetson?” the slim one asked leaning over his sleepy friend right up in Shimo’s ear, the swordsman pinched his nose and placed his sword against the seat in front of him.
“Oh… Wait… You’re the guy who uses the sword we recruited right? What’s his name… Damn, I forgot, he’s from no neighborhood though, he’s from… Damn… I don’t even know…” the slim one scratched his chin with a small stubble of a couple of hairs wrapping around each other.
“Does it matter? I just wish to see the show, can’t we just listen to the show?” Shimo grunted facepalming himself angrily. He was seriously considering changing seats but that would’ve alerted the two drunks that he wasn’t enjoying their company or attracted too much attention so close before the show started.
“Wait… Wasn’t Jonessy supposed to bring the money today?” the slim one complained again.
“The money?” Shimo asked.
“Yeah, the money for gambling!” the slim one shouted out alerting everyone around them but the Sound Village inhabitants knew better than to object the silence broken by the Syndicate.
“You’re drunk. Stop picking this fight, you’ll lose…” Shimo replied, “It wasn’t my turn, it was this fat pig’s” the Yuki replied slamming his elbow into the fat drunk’s sleeping face. The chubby remained asleep, a disgusting snot slipped out from his broken and hooked nose.
“Yeah… You’re from the neighborhood alright…” the slim one smiled slapping Shimo’s back rudely with a laughter that spread more of his stench throughout the whole hall.
“But are you?” Shimo angrily squinted at the slim one back with an angry stare.
“How dare ya! I bet you ain’t even married to Ariadne Jetson ye goomba!” the slim one jumped up rolling back his sleeves. “I was born in the neighborhood long before you, raised in it and kicked my ball with the neighbohoodest of them all! And even if I wasn’t, I was playin’ outside with the others way earlier because I was a late bloomer!”
“An early bloomer…” Shimo replied crossing his hands around his chest and extending his legs so that they were lifted onto the seat in front of him. He was taught of the criminal ways good by his second sensei when he left the village temporarily. He had the chops to Syndicate all around this joker…
“What?” the slim bastard complained dragging Shimo’s face closer by his collar and winding up his punch. Shimo accelerated the chakra flow to break the dirtbag’s fist when he decided to punch.
“An early bloomer, if you’d have been a late bloomer you’d have joined the neighborhood crew later than normal, your point is that you’ve more neighborhood cred than Jonessy of the neighborhood and you simply do not. One does not outneighborhood Jonessy of the neighborhood! I knew all the neighborhood warriors! If I started naming them you’d know none of them, that’s how many warriors I knew!” Shimo smiled shrugging.
Finally the fat slob woke up and tore the slim Petey off Shimo making the young swordsman fix his jacket and sit back down in his seat. The chubby shook Petey violently.
“Stop! You’re ruining our cred here, yer picking fights with Jonessy of the neighborhood! The guy can pee so hard he pees through a marble toilet, right fucking through! Pick yer fights carefully because if Jonessy gets as much as one drop of sake he’ll kick your ass and then steal your woman!”
“But he’s married to Ariadne Jetson, isn’t he? What does he need my Hunney for?” Petey began to sob. The fat mobster shook his friend violently and slapped him around before pushing him back into his seat.
“You’ve had twelve too many rice whiskeys… Look at yerself, Petey… Picking fights with the neighborhood… Just look at yerself, Petey…” the fat slob finally settled back down.
Finally the lights turned off and the curtains opened. The Notasa’s show finally started and Shimo hoped to catch the little starlet after the show, just like most fans kept Mana busy after hers…
[Reviews - 0]Chapter or Story
Table of Contents
- Text Size +