Shimo was going through a new set of feelings while he followed Carnefici and Notasa around. The tall man effortlessly moved aside the massive debris and pushed it over, making a comfortable corridor for the young singer and composer to pass through. Several times he even smashed the debris with a single careless flick of his wrist reducing the whole structure to dust. Carnefici was certainly a powerful man, as a person who walked with his heart by his sword Shimo inevitably tried comparing himself to the once famous mass murderer, pillager and mercenary pack leader. He wasn’t so sure if he could take the man on if the need ever rose to.
“Did you lose something?” the man huffed out rudely aimed at Shimo’s direction. The young swordsman just tsked his tongue, he wasn’t sure about what was the best course of action for him. He needed Notasa’s help but he didn’t know how to approach the shocked and afraid young artist and how to get Carnefici by his side as the young lady appeared to hold the man’s opinion and advice in high regard.
Slowly the Yuki walked up to the young lady and looked her in the eyes, waiting until the girl raised her head to meet his eyes. “I need the young lady’s help. I must insist, we don’t have much time in this village and… It’s really important” he spoke to Notasa directly. Ninja were taught minimal psychology basics in the Academy, people were always more likely to give a positive answer and help when they were spoken to directly.
Notasa wavered and for a moment wondered if she should go out of her way to help this youth. Shimo took this waver for a sign of interest, “You see we’ve found this interesting golden sphere in the Wind Country desert, it has ancient symbols on it that are phrased like a musical composition but it has missing notes and pieces that only a skilled composer or a musician could fill in. Your talent in improvisation and composition is without peers, as I’ve already had my chance to find out. I am sure that you’d be able to help…”
Carnefici pushed Shimo away with his broad shoulder, his angry eyes stuck on a strict wrinkled face threatened to burn the boy alive with but a stare.
“Fine, give your sphere to the young lady here and now, she’ll give you her consult so you can leave the young lady alone” he hissed.
Shimo stroke the back of his head further messing up his already hectic hairdo. “I don’t… Really have it on me right now. My friends have it in one of their bags and… Well… I got separated from them tracking a young woman” he explained shyly realizing how dumb his position sounded.
“The young lady was just attacked by the Syndicate, a criminal group that holds this whole fucking village in their hands and could squish it like a dying sparrow at any point. Every transaction in this village, every person draws breath only because the Boss allows it. The young lady is no longer in the favor of those men and they will come after her again, the safest place for her right now is her own mansion which I’ve ensured to make into an iron fort. No Audra boned motherfucker will ever step on her backdoor mat without having their ass blown up. That is where the young lady will go and not a single step sideways…” the hulking bodyguard angrily explained to the annoyed Yuki.
Shimo couldn’t allow Notasa to get locked inside some mansion. If she did there would be no reaching her for who knew how long and he wouldn’t dare to piss Mana off any more by forcing her to wait. If he knew the magician as well as he thought he did, she’d just blame herself for every world war happening during the time she tried to find the damned box and get her chakra control back, something like that will only make his friend spiral down into darkness further and Shimo has already lost one friend to senseless and poisonous grief, the kind that corrupts all and makes comedians bloody their hands and flip their grins upside down.
“She didn’t piss anyone off, you did…” Shimo angrily grunted out, a bit louder than he may have wanted to, almost immediately he realized that he was over the line but now that he had committed to a strategy he had to go on, he was in no position to falter. He had to go on the set path till the end of it.
Carnefici and the young lady looked at him curiously, for a moment it appeared like both of them were ready to burst into laughter but they just continued to stare at him like Shimo was a bum who just flashed in front of them.
“I mean, they didn’t have a problem with Notasa, they had a problem with you and it’s a reasonable one at that. When I was a kid there was a huge outcry when you weren’t executed, hell, I’m surprised there wasn’t a loud enough outcry when you left the prison at all. You were pretty much the big bad wolf back then, the worst of the worst, mothers would’ve scared their children with you if they weren’t so damn scared of your raids themselves. If they were to protect Notasa and maintain public order as they claim to be doing, they would never allow someone like you to stay in their village” Shimo explained his position, if he made Notasa question his bodyguard’s legitimacy and ability, maybe even his morality and his personality she could be left alone with no one to protect her, in that case she’d be under Shimo’s care and open to his suggestions. It was a dirty play but it was the only play as well.
“It’s not about fucking protection, it’s about control. The Boss is really darn happy about his new fucking bones and body so he goes around telling every merchant to ditch their doormats and change their curtains, he demands the dumbest things because he wants to see people do them just because he says they have to. It was never about fucking safety…” the bodyguard began speaking but then Notasa butt in.
“Didn’t you hear what Carne said? Get lost!” she angrily yelled out in Shimo’s face with ferocity the young swordsman had not seen coming from the musician. Just what the hell could’ve been her problem? Just how close could those two have been?
“Wait… I was wrong to take their side… I mean… Damn, whenever someone sides with the Syndicate they’re on the wrong side of the argument. That being said, I’m still pretty tough myself and I can provide decent enough protection. Maybe if I helped you two get rid of the Syndicate’s tail for good you could help me with our sphere?” Shimo looked at the two questioningly when Carnefici just sighed after giving Notasa a stare. He really didn’t like Shimo but he happened to place the girl’s well-being really high up on his priority list so he sort of had to factor it into his decisions.
“Fine…” he grunted annoyed by his own decision.
Shimo looked farther into the city center hearing screams, yells and seeing smoke in multiple districts. Was this village always this hectic at nights? It was like the whole damned place was going insane. There was one building that looked toppled down and just outright on a raging inferno of flames whirling up to the sky as if trying to heat God’s own marshmallows. There was another “ a sky reaching one that looked like it was about to be toppled at any point. The boy had not noticed it before but now that he had time to look around it really stuck out.
“So why are you wearing that fucking getup? You fought the Syndicate in it so you can’t be a Syndicate goon, are you from the Diamond Hand?” Carnefici asked, Shimo squinted at him questioningly.
“Diamond Hand?” he wondered.
“It’s another criminal organization, similar to the Syndicate, one of many, actually, Diamond Hand is mostly based in Shukuba though, they don’t spread out much, still they’re conflicting with the Syndicate the most so I thought…” the man explained.
“No. I’m a Konoha ninja and I tried to go see the hall but I have neither the money needed for the ticket, nor the threads needed to be let in by the really sassy bouncers. We’ve already clashed with the Syndicate once, toppled some of their bases of operations actually, I didn’t know they had multiple large operational locations like this…” the boy told the truth, something told him that in his current position the last thing he wanted to was to lie.
“Yeah… Mobsters are like weeds to ninja, they’re too small time to be priority in their mad world of exploding stars and protecting the fucking world but when they’re ignored they get out of control too fast. The only reason I was even able to slaughter and pillage so many was because no one gave rat’s ass until I killed the wrong family, then everyone was on my tail all of a sudden…” the man’s reply made Shimo curious. He wanted to know a little more about how a mass murderer and the very definition of evil ended up bodyguarding a talented musician in Otogakure.
“So… You not killing, what’s all that about?” he asked quite simply.
Carnefici sighed, “When I was finally captured there was this huge outcry, suddenly every Kage and every village wanted to execute me according to their laws and on their soil, they almost went to war for it. The conflict actually went on for so long that I was just staying imprisoned in Jigoku without a sentence or even a word of my execution for five years. At some point the Hokage decided that executing me at all would be wrong and that while my actions were inexcusable, injustice from the side of the Feudal Lord would’ve been equally inexcusable so they switched the sentence to life imprisonment. Still, not until I was actually let go from my cell after getting my pardon signed by a lot of influential people almost a decade later did I wonder about what I was supposed to do with my life. All of my accomplices were already littering the fields of battle with their dead bodies. I decided to be born anew and thought that killing people was not something I wanted to do. I lied to that scumbag, I don’t really remember everyone I hurt, I think that would be impossible but I feel bad for the fact that I don’t. I don’t get haunted by those I’ve killed over the years during my nightmares and I feel like I should be, those few times I do dream of the final moments of those people I feel like there should be more corpses clawing my eyes out… I’m a piece of shit, always was and always will be, but at least I can be less of a piece of shit by keeping this kid safe and kicking all the right asses this time” the man spoke for a while and it was clear that his voice wasn’t used to such tension, he was a man of few words usually and now that his breath was working overtime his voice broke in couple of places and felt really shaky in overflowing feelings coming from the man’s chest.
“I was looking for a bodyguard when I started out. Carne was getting rejected by everyone and couldn’t find a job no matter what he did. Everyone treated him even worse than he once treated his victims and the worst part was that he had already served his time. People who have paid for their sins and redeemed themselves should never have to prove they’ve paid for their sins or pay for them again. Everyone does bad things, everyone’s guilty of something, Carne is guilty of probably some of the worst things ever… Still, he’s my bodyguard now and that’s all I care about” Notasa explained adding to her bodyguard’s speech.
Shimo continued to walk in silence staring into the murky sky, it was really late already, the night was probably reaching its peak and yet the flames and smoke as well as all the neon lights coming from the central district made it seem like the morning was about to break at any point in time, like the Sun would rise and a new dawn would come for once, lighting up this blasted village for once and giving it a new chance only for it to fail its chance. Again and again and again… But was it really doomed to only fail? Did it really have no chance to be something more? Mana would’ve probably believed that as long as there was chance that the village could fix itself somehow, maybe even by the same honest people trying to fix it, the same pleasure driven selfish bastards that lived here, that it deserved another chance. Carnefici was not the problem in this village… There was one sentence Shimo never expected to utter in his life.
“So what made you into bubblegum man?” Shimo wondered, “It’s clearly a ninjutsu of some sort but it’s not any ninjutsu I’ve ever seen, seems like a bloodline but it’s not a bloodline of a clan I’ve ever heard of…”
“Carne is what ninja call many names: “mutate”, “freak”, “reject”…” Notasa began to explain but the man spoke up himself to explain it properly, it was clear why the young lady wanted to speak for her bodyguard “ it was very clearly a painful topic for Carnefici.
“My father was from a ninja clan and my mother was not, usually clan members need to inbreed with their other clan members to carry on the bloodline, when the other side of the coin is not of the clan the bloodline may be carried within the baby or may not be. On separate occasions another matter entirely happens…” the man explained.
“So you’re from a clan?” Shimo asked to clarify a little.
“Hozuki clan from Kirigakure, usually Hozuki members are able to liquefy their bodies at will using a Hiden technique that also requires one to have the proper bloodline and heavily modified DNA traits of a clan member. I on the other hand was born a freak, sometimes when the… Union… Is impure the result is a unique twist on the ability, I on the other hand to my clan members cannot liquefy my body but I turn it into liquid plastic, an oily substance instead of oil, my clan naturally rejected me and tried to kill me multiple times, as is the fate of all like me. I suppose that hatred ever since I was able to walk helped create the Carnage Fici…” the bodyguard concluded.
“So turning your body to bubble gum is some sort of a twist on that ability? Like how Yuki are capable of creating ice out of any water source or even air humidity you can form that gummy substance from your oil?” Shimo scratched his chin admiring the ability of Carnefici, naturally he was a little surprised as usually twisting one’s natural abilities like that was more attributed to ninja that devoted their entire lives for their craft of mastering their abilities. For it to be accessible to a common mercenary with a lucky birth defect… Carnefici surely was a unique man in the tides of history, it was just sad that he turned out the way he was, people would’ve loved a talented lowlife rising to the top story…
“What about you? Who’s that “young lady” of yours you’re so desperate to help?” Notasa asked with a little curiosity and that silly winking behind her voice, changing it to try to imply that she meant something more than she actually meant.
“My client… Also… My teammate… Also a really good friend” Shimo tried to explain but Mana’s place in his life sort of defied any single word or explanation.
“You seem lost about her place in your life…” Notasa winked and laughed out making Carnefici laugh out much more crudely and loudly.
“Yeah… That’s the running theme of my life. Ever since I was a child I thought I knew who I was “ the young man who would make every woman in the world happy…”
“I like that dream…” Notasa butt into his explanation.
“Naturally…” Carnefici sarcastically added.
“Anyways, then my sensei died and… It changed everyone, my teammates became different and suddenly both of us lost our way, Sugemi became angry and frustrated, he just decided that killing all criminals was the way to ensure that no one else had to suffer grief such as our own. I just lost all traces of who I was, I did something stupid and had to leave, try to find who I was…” Shimo finished his explanation.
“Did you?” Notasa curiously inquired.
“Ironically enough, not until I came back. I realized that Mana was the only one of us three who hadn’t changed after sensei’s death. If anything she became stronger in reaching for her dream and I admired that, no matter how hard she’s hit she always falters and wavers, flails like a pushed pendulum as she is affected by those blows and suffers greatly. But she always swings back before returning to the balance point. I realized that she wanted to inspire people and I wanted to be inspired and find my dream, my identity. And so I’ve decided to be more like her “ a sword that protects but…”
“Swords ain’t for protectin’, they’re for poking” Carnefici added.
“Right. I saw those bunch of Justicar scumbags just casually fighting without restraint, not caring about the homes they’d destroy fighting like that, casually blinking out stars out of existence and drowning entire systems in eternal darkness and cold. Don’t people like that deserve death? I just don’t know anymore... I think a sword that protects is not a sword that does not kill, I think that I am different from Mana, I think that sometimes I see no other option. But then… If someone like me was in charge I’d have beheaded Carnefici the first chance I got and he’d have never met Notasa-chan…” Shimo tried to argue with himself at this point, the young man was sinking in a river of confusion.
“You would’ve probably been right to do so. People like me don’t deserve second chances… I’d kill me if I had the blade by the fucker’s throat” Carnefici grunted.
Notasa wrapped her arms around Carnefici’s large slammer and pulled him towards her possessively. “Don’t ever talk like that, Carne! Maybe redemption for a person like you is impossible, hell, I’m pretty sure people made up that word to call a concept they themselves invented and the people who did that are long since dead… What matters is that you’re alive and you’ve got people dear to you and people who hold you dear have you! That is all that matters!” Notasa whined out. Her voice sounded really strong and womanly and not at all as childish as when she sang. It was always so strange to hear a musician speak casually…
“I’ll help you, Shimo-kun! Once this all is over, I’ll help you, if I’ll be able to!” Notasa declared jumping off of Carnefici’s arm which she was holding by herself a moment ago. Shimo didn’t know how to react, he merely nodded, finally things seemed to be moving somewhere…
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